The meeting venue was not the traditional meeting room in Zurich. Instead, we held the GB meeting in Barcelona beach at the W Hotel, where architecture and the Mediterranean sea merge in an inspiring location. The meeting was held in the afternoon, preceded by Mediterranean cuisine light lunch. Directors and the CEO were staying at the hotel that night. We planned the session for four hours.

We agreed that the strategic and transformation issues would need at least 60% of the meeting time regarding the agenda. We carefully prepared the agenda to balance energy-intensive moments with recovery activities. The agenda was shared with sufficient time in advance, requesting feedback from the directors. The meeting management software application was very beneficial for that. 

Switzerland’s known digital art collective prepared an interactive digital installation in the meeting room. It consisted of a video wall presenting a digital work titled “Office with no walls”. The artwork referred to the transition to remote and hybrid working from home that many companies are implanting and is impacting the rental of business offices.

The V Hotel is located at the “paseo marítimo” of Barcelona, an inspiring and relaxing promenade in front of the sea, where members could have a refreshing walk.

Space can be an ally for intensive discussion moments. Directors learned how to exploit space as a tool, position themselves according to points of view, materialize intellectual distance, and be used as the scenery of action and movement for consensus. Placing objects placing themselves can contribute share ideas and opinions better.

 The company had no truly explicit purpose declaration; we discussed this point during the previous training session. In a GB meeting, the company purpose is continuously present -even physically in the form of images and infographics- to help discussions. The company’s purpose is the driver of change, not the opposite.

Feedback was a crucial point addressed at the training session and put into practice during the GB meeting. Identifying the board’s goals and making visible the level of advance contributes to engagement, implication and attention, as the directors recognize it. At any time, the members could evaluate the experience using their mobile phone, indicating one or several “Plus” to show good progress, a “Minus” to indicate a regress, or a “Delta” to indicate a deviation from the main goals. The counting was displayed on the interactive video wall screen using appealing infographics.

In the past, the traditional approach for the discussion was presentations by the CEO followed by the directors’ comments. We decided in the agenda not to make these presentations and replace most of them with previously distributed documents. Before the meeting, we prepared and spread curated links to articles and data analytics to prepare for the discussion.

Digital tools highly facilitated access to data and information. Technology was at the service of the experience, not the opposite. With the available digital tools, data and information were presented as requested by the directors. Data and analytics were curated and prepared to facilitate quick and meaningful access. 

The first part of the discussion was dedicated to asking incisive questions around the following topics: What are the emerging new trends in office utilization and remote working? What is the impact of digital transformation in remote working? How the recent trends are, and will they impact the office rental business of the company? What opportunities can the company have in front of such changes? Can we prepare the company for a digital disruptive change? How do we prepare ourselves as a board to lead the transformation? Iterative reformulation of questions was a valuable technique to remove limiting assumptions and encourage participation for effective action. 

We used the video wall as an interactive tool for visual thinking. The technique was beneficial to discuss transformation elements: flexible offices, shared spaces, remote working, digitally-enabled co-working spaces, etc.

Art & nature inspired the concept of Aesthetics; the board identified it as a value of the company’s transformation for the benefit of the community. After a deep and confronting but positive discussion, the CEO agreed to design a project focused on upgrading the public spaces of the owned buildings for aesthetic motivations and using this project to strengthen the company’s image.

At the end of the meeting, the participants shared how the meeting was inspiring new ideas, generated new strategical decisions, supported the CEO in the change management process, and connected better in and out of the boardroom. The moment was as well utilized as the beginning of the preparation of the next meeting, suggesting topics for the next agenda. One of the topics was about new business models based on renting shared office spaces for remote or hybrid working close to the residential areas. 

A few weeks after the GB meeting, ABC Real Estate added a new section about sustainability and community to the company website. The section includes a subsection on the vision of the board, recent decisions, and actions. They primarily focused on the community benefits and how the board promotes aesthetic improvement around the buildings. The publication generated some articles in media and newspapers.