There's a pattern we tend to see in most companies we work with. At first, decisions get made by the founder. Then the company grows, the room gets crowded, and someone suggests a committee. It seems reasonable. A committee is just a way to get the right people together to decide something.
The trouble is that committees are easy to create and almost impossible to kill. No one proposes disbanding one, because that means admitting its work doesn't matter, and the people on it take that personally. So they accumulate. Eventually the senior people at a company spend most of their week in meetings whose purpose none of them could explain.
The surest sign a committee has gone bad is that it's turned into an update meeting. People take turns describing what they've been working on, everyone nods, and nothing is decided. This feels like work. It even feels like alignment. But you could have gotten the same result from an email, and an email doesn't pull ten people out of their day.
Usually the cause is that no one knows what the committee is for. It was formed to solve some problem, the problem changed, and the meetings continued because they were on the calendar. A group with no defined outcome fills its time with whatever is easiest to discuss, which is whatever is most urgent. The important things just wait.
The most efficient companies we work with run committees differently. Each one knows exactly what it exists to decide and how it decides. Someone owns the agenda, and every item on it says what outcome is needed. Membership is small: the people who make the decision and the few whose input really matters. They meet as often as the work requires and no more, and members show up prepared.
What really sets these companies apart, though, is how aggressively they cut. If a meeting doesn't follow these principles, it gets fixed or it gets cancelled, and nobody waits for an annual review to do it. People grumble for a week, and then they notice they have their Thursday afternoons back.
A CEO we worked with recently shared the rules every committee at their company has to follow. Here they are:
1. Clear about purpose
Every committee must be clear about why it exists and what tangible, measurable outcomes it's responsible for. Members should know what's expected of them and how their work ties back to the committee's mission. If nobody can say what the committee is for, it shouldn't meet.
2. Issue focused
A committee is not an update or information-sharing session, and someone should watch to make sure it doesn't turn into one. Agendas should cover a mix of near-term and longer-term issues, so the urgent doesn't crowd out the important. There should be a clear process for escalating issues and a clear rule for making decisions, whether that's majority vote, supermajority, or something else.
3. Agenda management
The agenda is how you make sure people arrive prepared and ready to contribute. One member owns it and is accountable for its quality, and that job can rotate. Each item needs a description that includes the outcome required: brainstorming options for something new, finding alternative solutions to a problem, evaluating a proposal against criteria, scoping a new initiative, deciding on an implementation approach, or making a policy recommendation.
4. Membership
Be selective. Based on what the committee is for, include the decision makers and the people who can provide key input into decisions. Others can join on a rotating basis when their specific input is needed. Every committee has a designated chair.
5. Cadence
How often and how long you meet depends on the situation. A committee dealing with a lot of change, where close alignment is critical, might meet for a full day every month. One in a steadier state, or one that handles parts of its work in other forums, might only need to meet once a quarter.
6. High performance
Like any team, a committee should have clear standards that members are evaluated against: attendance, preparation (from both the people who prepare the materials and the people expected to read them), real participation and engagement in the meeting, and sticking to the agenda.