Conflict Is a Feature, Not a Failure

A boardroom without disagreement is a boardroom that is not doing its job. If every proposal passes without challenge, the board is either disengaged or intimidated, and both conditions are dangerous. As Chairman of the Advisory Board at OM International, and across the many governance settings my career has taken me into, I have come to see disagreement as raw material: handled well, it produces sharper decisions; handled badly, it produces factions and paralysis.

The question, then, is never how to eliminate boardroom conflict. It is how to metabolise it. Over the years I have developed a consistent method, and I share it here in the hope that it serves other chairs, directors, and founders navigating the same challenges.

Separate the Idea From the Person

Most boardroom disputes escalate because a challenge to an idea is experienced as a challenge to the person who proposed it. My first intervention as chair is always to re-anchor the discussion in the substance. I restate the proposal in neutral terms, acknowledge the strongest version of each objection, and make clear that we are examining a decision, not auditing a colleague's competence.

This sounds simple, but it requires vigilance. The moment language turns personal, with phrases like your plan or your mistake, I redirect it. The board's product is judgement, and judgement degrades quickly once ego enters the room.

Make the Quietest Voice Heard First

In any group, a predictable dynamic emerges: two or three confident voices dominate, and the rest calibrate their positions accordingly. This is how boards make expensive mistakes, because the dissenting insight that could have saved the decision often sits with someone who never felt invited to speak.

My practice is to invert the usual order. On contested questions, I invite the least senior or quietest members to speak first, before the strong personalities have framed the debate. The improvement in decision quality is remarkable. Some of the best correctives I have ever received in a boardroom came from people who, under normal dynamics, would have said nothing at all.

Disagree on Facts Before Disagreeing on Judgement

Many disputes that appear to be clashes of judgement are actually clashes of information: two directors holding different data arriving at different conclusions. Before allowing a debate to harden, I insist that we establish what we collectively know. What are the figures? What is the source? What is assumption and what is evidence?

A striking number of disagreements dissolve at this stage. When they do not, the remaining dispute is genuinely about judgement and risk appetite, and that is precisely the kind of disagreement a board exists to resolve. This discipline of separating fact from interpretation is one I apply equally in my advisory engagements with institutions and government-level partners.

Decide Cleanly, Then Unify Completely

Debate must have a terminus. Once every view has been heard and tested, the board decides, by consensus where possible, by formal vote where necessary. And then comes the rule I enforce most strictly: once decided, the board speaks with one voice. Directors who lost the argument are entitled to have their dissent minuted, but they are not entitled to relitigate the decision in corridors or undermine it in execution.

This principle, decide cleanly and unify completely, is what distinguishes a governing body from a debating society. It also protects dissenters: because everyone knows the decision will be collectively owned, disagreement during the debate carries no lasting cost, which in turn encourages honesty. Over time, this rhythm of vigorous debate followed by total unity becomes cultural, and new directors absorb it within their first few meetings without a word of instruction.

The Chair's Own Temperament

Finally, a word about temperament. The chair sets the emotional ceiling of the room; a board can be no calmer than the person leading it. I learned composure in the years spent building Furniture in Fashion through supplier crises, logistical failures, and economic shocks, when panic was a luxury the business could not afford. Those years taught me that a leader's stillness is contagious, and so is a leader's agitation.

Boardroom disagreement, handled with structure and grace, is one of the most valuable resources an organisation possesses. It is the sound of intelligent people taking their duty seriously. My role, as I see it, is to ensure that sound resolves into harmony rather than noise. Readers who wish to discuss governance challenges in their own organisations are welcome to reach out via the contact page, and more on my background can be found here.