The definitive guide to the CEO’s report

Directors tell us that the CEO’s report is the most important paper in their board pack, and the one they read first. However, despite its value, few organizations get it right.

There are many common pitfalls. Time-poor CEOs might assume that board members will find what they need in their team’s papers. Or that directors will feel frustrated at having to read a paper that repeats content they can find elsewhere in their 200+ page board pack. So, why bother with a full written report when a verbal one (or a few simple bullet points) will suffice?

The fact is, a few bullet points are not enough. A well-written CEO’s report does more than give Chief Executives an invaluable opportunity to reflect and tap into the expertise of their board members. It also answers the question, “What’s on my mind?” And understanding what’s on the CEO’s mind is key to an effective board.

A CEO’s report isn’t an assignment handed over by the board to the Chief Executive, with the latter trying to please the former. Rather, it’s something that should add value for both.

For the board, and especially the non-executives, the CEO’s report gives them the lay of the land and helps them determine where their support is needed. New developments that may seem obvious to an executive team deeply involved in the business may not always be self-evident for directors. The CEO’s report helps fill that gap.

With board packs growing longer every year and papers too often coming late to the board, the CEO’s report is also an invaluable signpost. Our joint research with Cambridge Judge Business School found that the average time a board member spends reading a board pack is just short of four hours. What’s more, in most cases, almost half the content is going unread.

By confirming what’s going as planned and highlighting what the organization needs help with, the CEO’s report lets directors know what they should focus on first and ensures that these important areas of focus don’t get buried under the sheer volume of the pack.

Without a steer, non-executives often focus on the second part of their role: supervision. For the Chief Executive, the CEO’s report is an opportunity to provide that steer, shaping or rebalancing the board’s conversation towards its other role: guidance. This is where a CEO can make a direct ask and focus the directors’ attention on the big questions, ensuring that the meeting time is spent on “How do we succeed?” rather than “Are these numbers accurate to two decimal places?”

It’s also an opportunity to step back from the weeds of day-to-day operations. Writing a regular CEO’s report means blocking out some time to gather your thoughts and assess where you are, which can be difficult to do without the board meeting acting as a deadline. In turn, providing that “helicopter” view to the board will help ensure that nothing is being missed.

Finally, the CEO’s report is a crucial tool for building trust in the boardroom. Yes, all the bad news is in the board papers, but it doesn’t do much good if directors have to dig through a spreadsheet buried somewhere on page 97. Poor dynamics often stem from the frustration of having to weed out what’s not going well.

WWII General George S. Patton applied this when he started his famous speech to the Third Army by stating, “You are not all going to die. Only two percent of you right here today would be killed in a major battle.” With the bad news addressed first and out of the way, everyone could focus on the rest of his speech and on what had to be done.

In a similar way, the CEO’s report can give the board an unvarnished view of the business by highlighting recent setbacks as well as successes. This creates a healthy relationship between board members and ensures that the organization gets the support it needs.

If the CEO’s report answers “What’s on my mind?”, how do we unpack that question? We recommend adopting the following structure:

Answering these questions will provide a balanced view of the organization, looking at the past, but also at the future, and covering both successes and mishaps.

Looking back, make sure to cover not just the “What”, but also the “Why”. Why have things gone your way, or not? What does it imply? And what have you done about it?

Looking ahead, draw out the consequences for the organization. How is management going to adapt? And what about the future is keeping you awake at night?

Finally, tackle the “So what?” What does it all mean for the board? As the CEO, are you confident that the organization will be able to deliver the plan that was previously shared with the directors? Does it require us to change that plan, and if so, how?

Most CEO’s reports we see fail because they forget to cover one or more of these points, usually by looking solely at the past or failing to balance the good news with the bad. Following this question-and-answer approach will help bring consistency to your reports and prevent gaps.

When it comes to length, we recommend keeping it short. Ideally, these questions should all be answered at a high level on one side of an A4 page, and can be further discussed on a few accompanying pages.

When leading an organization's day-to-day operations, it can be difficult to make time to step back and assess your progress toward its goals. Preparing a report for the board should be a great opportunity to do this.

Recap your organization’s purpose and goals at the beginning of your report, to link your update to the “big picture”. This will ensure that your report focuses on what really matters and reminds the board of the organization’s mission.

Don’t fall into the trap of telling a good-news-only story. Everybody knows that business is not plain sailing, so board members want to hear what’s not going well as much as what is.

For a CEO’s report that the board trusts and values, highlight what you’re concerned about and the areas where you would most welcome the board’s advice. After all, as one non-executive director put it, “I need to read the bad news, because I need to know that they know. Without it, I can only assume that management doesn’t know their business.”

Your report should reflect on past performance but also explain how you feel about the outlook and why. As another director put it, “You wouldn’t drive a car by only looking in the rear-view mirror.”

Your report should explore the implications of significant developments and the risks or opportunities you see ahead. No one knows your business better than you do, and the board wants to know this insight.

When it includes lots of numbers, a narrative quickly becomes indigestible. A CEO’s report that describes performance can miss the drivers and implications of performance, or include both and become unwieldy.

The best CEO board reports sit alongside a one-page data dashboard presenting the numbers. This frees up the CEO’s narrative to focus on the overall trend and the implications of significant under- or overperformance.

Some board members are at their best when they see narratives, while others are more comfortable with data. So, the CEO’s dashboard is a powerful addition to the CEO’s report, as it’s a story told through data on a single page.

What data matters most will vary from one organization to another. But, at a high level, a good CEO’s dashboard should describe the health of the organization in a simple, visual way (think “green and red indicators”), providing at a glance the assurance the board needs to focus on what’s on the CEO’s mind.

Note that this isn’t a financial dashboard. Often, CEO dashboards miss the mark by answering only “How is the business doing?” Instead, they should also answer “How are we doing business?”

The CEO’s dashboard should be much broader in scope than the CFO’s and speak to all the key stakeholders’ interests, by answering some critical questions such as:

• Are we making progress on our long-term, strategic goals?
• How are we performing and how do our people/suppliers/customers feel about us?
• Are we working in the “right” way (culture, compliance, sustainability)?

The answers to these questions will most likely already be somewhere in your board papers. But a CEO’s dashboard will help draw them out for the board and identify if anything is missing from your pack.

One thing most CEOs don’t have much of is free time. So, how do you write a great CEO’s report when many pressing matters are already vying for attention in your schedule?

Our suggested trick: if you can’t find a moment to sit down and write comprehensive answers to the questions above, get someone to “interview” you instead. The interviewer can then put that Q&A on paper. All that’s left is for you to review the draft and add your “voice” to the report, sharing your hopes and concerns, and applying your judgment to the information you’ve shared.

It doesn’t need to take hours in front of your screen, either. One of the best CEO’s reports we’ve read was done by a Chief Executive who recorded his thoughts on his phone while walking his dog. The report read like a letter to the board, making it that bit more engaging while still answering all the important questions covered in our structure.

Getting your CEO’s report to the level where it delivers value to everyone, CEO included, is an easy and effective way to improve your board pack overall. But what about the rest of it?

Research we conducted with The Chartered Governance Institute shows that the size of the average board pack is ballooning, as are the investments needed to produce it. Yet, there’s little to show for it: two-thirds of board members and governance professionals rate their packs as being “weak” or “poor” overall. And it falls on the CEO to fix this.

To see how your board pack compares, use our free Board Reporting Assessment tool. And to deliver insightful reporting at scale, speak to our advisory team about our board pack transformation service or take a look at Lucia, our board and management report-writing platform.