The Importance of Situational Awareness. Scuba diving is a means for us to observe nature closeup and appreciate its majesty. The magnificence of the world under the surface of the water is within your grasp so long as you do so with clear vision. However, this isn’t merely about appreciating nature’s beauty. A clear view is more than a mere edge for a great underwater photo shot of a lovely coral reef. Clear vision drives a diver’s situational awareness -- a core survival skill in an activity fraught with danger.
For those inclined to Scuba dive regularly, there’s a rigorous safety program, PADI, which requires divers to learn-by-doing. Certification requires mastery of several routines which facilitate safe underwater journeys. Learning these routines reinforces a diver’s situational awareness and ensures safe passage in an underwater world not entirely built for human activity. One of the critical steps for certification is learning to clear one’s mask at depth – typically 20 to 30 feet under the surface of open water. It defies logic. You find yourself taking off a perfectly good mask, clearing and re-attaching it, all the while underwater and unconnected to your air tank. Sounds dangerous. It is! But foggy masks are a common occurrence in diving. Every serious Scuba diver understands the importance of mastering this activity. At depth, having a clear view of one’s surroundings isn’t merely a convenience. It’s a requirement for knowing your location and navigating your journey in a difficult, unforgiving environment.
As in diving, clarity isn’t optional for today’s business leader. It’s the difference between drifting aimlessly and navigating with real purpose.
🧭 Using the RACI Framework in a Fast-Growing Business. Leaders of growth equity companies search for edges. In the chaos of a scaling startup, clarity is one such competitive advantage.
One of the simplest, most powerful tools for defining roles and responsibilities in decision execution is the RACI framework. Use of the RACI model can drive greater clarity around who’s doing the work (R), who owns the outcome (A), who should give input (C) and who needs to be kept in the loop (I).
🛠️ What is RACI? RACI is an acronym that maps decision-making roles in any given process:
R = Responsible – These are the doers who own the task and get it done.
A = Accountable – This is where the buck stops. This is the one person ultimately answerable for success or failure.
C = Consulted – These are the advisors. Input is actively sought from them before action is taken.
I = Informed – These are the observers. They’re kept in the loop after decisions are made or tasks are completed.
The power of RACI lies in removing ambiguity. Everyone knows where they stand, what’s expected of them, and who they need to engage to move forward on a project.
🔄 Hiring Plan Approval. For the sake of illustration, let’s consider applying RACI to a strategic decision frequently made at the board level – the approval of a hiring plan in conjunction with the closing of a capital raise. Let’s break down the roles and responsibilities and actions associated with these stakeholders:
In practice, the board approves the framework of hiring—headcount numbers, role types, budget ceiling—but delegates operational execution to the CEO and team. RACI helps clarify that execution belongs to management, not the board.
This RACI framework might be further broken into specific responsibilities within these headings, too. In the above example, the Chief People Officer might be doing a series of actions associated with preparing for the hiring campaign and executing the plan (i.e., the Responsible Role), with the CEO being the accountable person associated with those CPO-led actions.
💼 M&A Deal
Board votes to approve an acquisition. Now what?
This is a classic case where governance and execution split: The board decides the company should buy a bolt-on target company, but the executive team executes the required deal elements under the watchful eye of the CEO, who’s ultimately accountable for driving a successful outcome. For example, let’s assume the CFO is responsible for completing diligence and the GC is responsible for completing the deal documents. Finishing diligence competently and delivering deal documents on-time are ultimately threshold issues which the CEO is accountable for, even if the details of completing these items are the responsibility of the CFO and GC.
🧩 Why RACI Matters in Startups. Startups evolve quickly. One week, there are five people working in your mother-in-law’s garage. A few quarters later, you’re managing international contractors or negotiating a joint venture with a Fortune 500 company. Without situational awareness and role clarity, you can easily lose focus, waste time and drift in mission execution.
Common aliments include founders second-guessing operator executives involved in scaling the business. Board members drifting too deeply into operational matters. Unempowered teams who lack authority to move ahead; they’re often wasting time chasing approvals on non-strategic matters. The team needs a framework for involving the right people in the mix and getting where they need to go quickly. RACI disciplines organizations so that decisions are owned -- not lost in email threads or vague job titles.
🧭 Board Decks: Less is More. One of the most enviable aspects of a well-run startup is its lean, nimble operation.
Decisions are fast.
Focus is sharp.
Then something changes.
The founding team begins to grow. They raise outside capital—and with that capital comes board meetings. Ostensibly, these meetings exist to keep investors informed and gain the benefit of their strategic input. But there’s always a risk of the real decision-making framework getting lost in the shuffle.
Whether you're running a formal board meeting or a casual session with an advisory board, don’t let process overwhelm purpose. The most precious asset in a startup is time—yours, your team’s, and your board’s. Avoid building bloated decks filled with noise. Prioritize what really matters.
💡 You need the right framework for raising issues, sifting out the non-relevant and focusing leadership on those core matters which make a difference.
🚪 The One Door-Two Door Framework. Jeff Bezos, the Amazon and Blue Origin founder, advocates a decision-making framework for operating the business which avoids the one-size-fits-all process observed at many companies. His One Door vs. Two Door Decision Framework enables companies of all sizes to make quicker, more effective decisions. When executed effectively, this framework accelerates the leadership team’s focus on truly strategic matters.
Two-door decisions are low-stakes and reversible. Small, empowered teams moving fast take these decisions. These don’t belong in a board meeting or executive leadership meeting.
One-door decisions are higher stakes in nature and harder to reverse. They require executive focus and quite frequently require strategic conversations. In many cases, these decisions are worth bringing to your board.
“Many decisions are reversible, two-way doors. Those decisions can use a light-weight process. For those, speed matters more than perfect decisions.” (FN1). Use the Bezos model to filter your board agenda for strategic matters. If an item doesn’t clear the “one-door” bar, it probably doesn’t need to take up time during the meeting.
Less Deck, More Dialogue -- How to Run a Smart Startup Board Meeting. There’s a balance between a visual picture (that tells a 1,000 words) and a series of slides, single-spaced covered from top-to-bottom with detailed text. The former format drives engagement. The latter is often unengaging – there’s a real concern, too, that the presenter wants to persuade (or cover their decision) with a flurry of words, not a thoughtful exchange of ideas.
The fundamental point of the executive and board level meetings is neither a clever visual nor a tsunami of information. If you’re running the meeting, this is your chance to gain insight and the informed views of the company’s decision makers. Information inundation isn’t effective. Those slides need the right balance to prompt strategic conversations, while giving the ultimate decisionmakers what they need to stay on top of what’s strategically important and take decisions.
🧭 The Real Purpose of a Board Meeting. At its best, a startup board meeting isn’t a data dump. It’s a high-leverage conversation. Founders shouldn’t treat it like a courtroom or a quarterly investor webinar. The goal isn’t to impress with volume or velocity. The point is to drive greater clarity and situational awareness of the realities of the business, align key stakeholders, inform board members about major developments and strategic decisions and seek wisdom from those seasoned veterans on your board.
A smart board meeting centers on three core themes:
Vision Check – Are we staying true to our long-term direction?
Execution Update – How are we progressing against the plan? What’s changed?
Critical Issues – Where do we need input, challenge, or decision support?
That’s it. Everything else — product updates, customer wins, sales metrics, burn rate — should roll up into one of those pillars and serve the conversation, not distract from it.
🧠 Board Meetings Are for Thinking. Long decks may have their place, such as due diligence or a data room. But if you're running a startup’s board meeting off those long slide shows, you're doing one of two things:
Using the deck to hide behind complexity (“don’t question me — look how busy we are!”), or
Failing to distill what matters right now.
What boards really want to do is help — especially in private companies where they likely chose to back the founder. They want the founder to succeed! Their help can only be offered if the founder opens space for it. The founder's job is not to overwhelm, but to prioritize and focus the room on what truly matters most.
As a founder, think of your board less like a quarterly report card and more like a team of guides. Use them.
Remember to use your board as a resource – guides, not judges. You want the benefit of their collective wisdom. Don’t lose sight of Reid Hoffman’s advice, “No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.” (FN2)
💡 What “Good” Looks Like. In most cases, less is more. For the typical startup, the fewer slides to accomplish the core tasks of the meeting, the better. Consider a simple series of slides, such as:
Vision slide, reminding leadership of “why” and our long-term horizon.
High-level KPIs. Are we on course? (If not, why not?)
Burn/Cash Runway and Financial Model deltas
In-flight Key Initiatives
Strategic Questions for Board: define where management is asking for input.
And then? Talk. The discussion is the value. Not the charts. Not the font.
These are conversations. That’s where the value is buried.
🎯 A Good Board Meeting Sounds Like:
“We hit our Q1 revenue goal, but our CAC is climbing faster than expected. We have three hypotheses. We’d like your take.”
“We’re considering pivoting our pricing model from per-seat to usage-based. Here’s what we’re seeing in early data — help us pressure-test the risks.”
“We’ve got two big partnership offers — one could be game-changing, the other could be distracting. Gut check?”
These aren’t updates. They’re strategic prompts—what every great boardroom moment is built upon.
And when things aren’t going to plan? Consider the comments of Ben Horowitz, “As a startup CEO, I slept like a baby. I woke up every two hours and cried.” (FN3)
Founders need the support of their board members. Your boardroom is a space for asking your hardest questions, not merely delivering last quarter’s results. Learn to use these meetings to drive clarity and purpose.
About the Author: Kevin R. Davis is a 2x General Counsel who offers business stakeholders strategic guidance aimed at optimizing their operations, including implementing lean legal systems, improving risk management processes, undertaking business transformations, fundraising, engaging in strategic planning and handling exits. Kevin publishes a weekly newsletter, The Savvy Startup Advisor™, which provides guidance for startup success. Earlier in his career, Kevin worked as a corporate attorney with Kirkland & Ellis, LLP and as a legal executive of Publicis Groupe. Kevin is a graduate of Northwestern University School of Law and Northwestern University.
Illustrations by Juliette Davis. Help tip the scale in favor of our talented illustrator, a graphics design student, Juliette Davis: https://buymeacoffee.com/savvystartupadvisor.
Nothing contained in this article should be construed as legal or investment advice. This article does not create an attorney-client relationship between any reader and its author. Neither the author nor the publisher is responsible for updating this publication to consider any changes in applicable laws. Nothing in this article is based upon the author or publisher’s experience with any specific individual or organization; any resemblance to actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental. If legal advice or other professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
📚 References
FN1 /Bezos, J. (2015). Amazon.com 2015 Letter to Shareholders. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/ir/shareholder-letters
FN2/ Hoffman, R. (n.d.). Reid Hoffman Quotes. Retrieved from https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/reid-hoffman-quotes
FN3 / Horowitz, B. (2014). The hard thing about hard things: Building a business when there are no easy answers. New York: HarperBusiness.
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