Bood on Board is a must-read monthly newsletter that shares governance stories and tips for leaders who want to add more value to their boardroom experience.

Where Did January Go? This newsletter usually comes out mid-month, but as you can see, I blew past that timing. And then I realized that 1/12 of 2026 is almost behind us. Lots accomplished but lots more to get done.

What Are My Clients Focused on?

• Director Training - I delivered an online live training session - sharing information and scenarios for discussion - with directors who sit on the board of their organizations’ joint ventures. We explored duties, conflicts of interest and information sharing restrictions.

• Terms of Reference - I reshaped an organization’s board and committee mandates to be more streamlined. We assessed whether the responsibilities were at the right level for board-level oversight and decisions. We removed tactical and fixed timing elements, allowing the board flexibility to adjust its agenda workplans for the right priorities.

Introduction

Boards are under pressure to tighten execution oversight and raise meeting effectiveness. That means better inputs - focused agendas, high-quality materials, richer discussions - and ultimately better decisions.

Higher-quality dialogue includes testing assumptions, surfacing dissent, and comparing credible alternatives before the room “locks in.” Yet two persistent risks can undermine this: groupthink and fear of dissent.

A practical way to get there is to adopt a simple dissent protocol: meeting processes that makes constructive challenge normal, safe, and expected.  This increases candor, generates better quality insights and limits groupthink, without increasing conflict.

What Groupthink Looks Like in Board Meetings

Groupthink (in boards): a pattern where the group unconsciously prioritizes harmony, consensus and cohesion over rigorous evaluation - leading to untested assumptions, weak alternatives, and missed risks.

Research from governance experts and behavioral science confirms that groups under pressure, uncertainty, or strong leadership presence often default to harmony at the expense of rigor. This results in the self-censorship, creating an illusion of unanimity. Groupthink can become the silent killer of robust decision-making.

In boardrooms and senior teams, it shows up in subtle ways:

• Consensus pressure: using phrases like "I think we’re all in agreement" early in a discussion.

• Early anchoring: when the first opinion voiced dictates the entire direction of the discussion, or a favoured view gets social momentum and becomes “the plan”

• Overconfidence in the familiar: preferring what’s known or has worked before, even in a different environment

• Deference to experts:  overly deferring to a single expert or respected leader without testing their assumptions

• Conflict avoidance: the “nice Canadian board” (or any collegial culture) where politeness mutes candor

The Dissent Protocol (what it is and why it works)

You don’t fix groupthink by asking people to pose more questions or to share their concerns. You fix it by giving them structure – with proactive dissent protocols – that makes dissent and deliberate challenge in meetings the default behaviour.

It normalizes dissent by explicitly testing alternatives and surfacing other information and evidence before settling.

This matters because people often hold back concerns for rational reasons: they don’t want to look difficult, slow down progress, embarrass management, or be the lone dissenter.

So don’t rely on bravery. Use protocol.

9 Practical Protocols to Try at your Next Meeting

These evidence-based tactics are simple, scalable, and proven to improve decision quality:

1. Leader speaks last: Chair/CEO speaks last to avoid anchoring.

2. Assign a “dissent role”: Assign one person to bring the contrarian view.

3. Silent Start + Round-Robin: Two minutes of silent note-taking; everyone speaks once before open debate.

4. Pre-mortem: Explore this scenario “It’s 18 months later and the strategy failed- what happened?” to force risk realism.

5. Red Team / Blue Team: Assign one group to support a proposal, another to challenge it.

6. One-Level-Deeper Rule: Every solution meets one “why/how do we know?” to separate evidence from assumption.

7. Disconfirming Evidence Round: Ask, “What evidence would change our minds?”

8. Two Alternatives Requirement: No decision unless at least two credible options are compared.

9. Decision Criteria Upfront: Agree on 3–5 success criteria before debating options.

Pick one to start. Add it to the agenda like you would any other tool.

Take this one page cheat sheet of all 9 protocols to your next board meeting.

Key Takeaways

• Groupthink is real—and costly. It limits creativity and blinds boards to risk.

• Structured dissent improves decisions. Constructive dissent isn’t about being contrary. It’s about avoiding blind spots, especially when the room is smart, aligned, and under pressure.  

• Start small, frame positively, and normalize the behavior. This builds trust and, over time, these habits are valued.

• Better dialogue = better governance. Boards that embrace rigor outperform those that settle for harmony.

My Free Resources:

Dissent Protocols (Chair Cheat Sheet) - 9 practical protocols to bring to your next board meeting to stimulate ideas and encourage constructive challenge.

Strategic Planning Guide - A five-stage roadmap to sharpen your next planning cycle and ensure that board discussions lead to real decisions and results.

Should the Board Approve This? - A six step filter to guide organizations struggling to distinguish between board-level and management-level decisions.

Giving Back by Supporting Non-Profits: Is your organization improving the world on a tight budget? Each year Puimac Consulting Ltd. provides a number of presentations pro bono. Non-profits with limited budgets can inquire for more information and on availability.

Please share this newsletter - my services may be exactly what they need right now.

Referrals are always appreciated!