A cartoon archive about the very human side of board-management dynamics

Every board meeting has a version of this opening. The promise of altitude. The reality of 94 slides and an appendix that runs to 212.

The signal and the volume are not the same thing. A board that arrives prepared can spend its time on the conversation that actually needs the room — not working through what should have been resolved before anyone sat down.

Boardroom Side Eye is a cartoon series about the very human side of board-management dynamics — and how better clarity can make the experience better for everyone.

The materials were circulated in advance. Technically.

Sent at 11:48 PM. Meeting at 8:00 AM. The stack on the table has its own gravitational field.

The people who build the board book already know the difference between distributing materials and preparing a board. Those are two different jobs. One of them happens at midnight. The other one is harder.

Boardroom Side Eye is a cartoon series about the very human side of board-management dynamics — and how better clarity can make the experience better for everyone.

The slide says ‘Strategic Discussion.’ The bullets say: CRM migration from Salesforce to HubSpot. Meal cap increased from $65 to $80. Employee badge redesign — three vendor proposals under review. Parking validation policy for hybrid employees, effective September 1.

The CEO is presenting with complete confidence. Nothing in his manner suggests he notices anything unusual.

Boards that want to stay at the strategy level need materials that have already done the work of separating what requires the room from what doesn’t.

Boardroom Side Eye is a cartoon series about the very human side of board-management dynamics — and how better clarity can make the experience better for everyone.

The CEO has just finished the slide. He looks out at the room, open and pleasant.

The board members are in motion — flipping back through pages, circling items with question marks, cross-referencing numbers that appear differently in the printed copy than on screen. Everyone has questions. The questions have sub-questions. No one knows where to start, because any place is as good as any other.

Sometimes silence means alignment. And sometimes it means the slide has made the issue harder to see, not easier.

Boardroom Side Eye is a cartoon series about the very human side of board-management dynamics — and how better clarity can make the experience better for everyone.