If everyone disagrees with you, leave the board.

If a board does one thing well, it must help a company to move forward. Velocity is everything in a company that is starting up, and probably burning capital every day on the journey to product market fit. If boards disagree and defer decisions to the next meeting, they are making a business weaker.

Sometimes this is because the whole board has a question. That probably suggests that there is a problem with the strategy which needs some more work. The action here is to agree on what needs to be done to get to clarity and then re-convene as soon as possible to make a decision.

Sometimes there is one director in the way. Sometimes that director is me and I am hyper-aware that I am a blocker. When this happens, I need to understand why I disagree and communicate as clearly as possible why that is so that the issue can be addressed quickly.

If it is addressed quickly, it makes the company sharper. It is a contribution. If I alone block the way forward, I am making the company weaker, even if I believe my position is valid.

Sometimes single directors have a different position on decisions quite often. Sometimes that has been me. Now I think it may be time to leave a board. Not to storm out in an act of protest, but to acknowledge that I am making the company weaker by creating a tension on the board and slowing down the company.

I hold myself to that accountability. Company first.

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I'm a Partner at Main Sequence, a VC purpose-built to create global companies from scientific ideas with the inventors who imagine them. I build-out-loud here: https://philmorle.substack.com