The lean tool board
On workshop floors, a shadow board is a panel where each tool has its outline drawn: you see at a glance what is missing. It is a practice of tidying and standardization, unrelated to running a company.
Flagship service · after the crisis
Shadow board: an outside view beside the leadership
At orgatypik, a shadow board is one or two experienced executives who sit beside your executive committee. They have nothing to protect in your organization: they prepare decisions with you, stress-test them, and say what nobody dares to voice in a meeting.
Definition
One term, three things not to confuse.
The term is used in three very different senses. The one offered here is the least widespread in France, and the difference decides what you are buying.
In one sentence
A shadow board, in orgatypik's sense, is a parallel, external leadership board: experienced executives, with no mandate and no decision-making power, who prepare and stress-test the executive committee's decisions, then follow up on what was decided until the team runs its own steering rituals.
The employee shadow board, or shadow executive committee
The most common sense: a committee of employees, often younger than the leadership, whom the leadership consults on its projects. It is a form of reverse mentoring: it opens the leadership to other internal viewpoints. It does not prepare steering decisions and does not follow up on their execution.
The outside-expert shadow board
What orgatypik does: practitioners who have themselves held executive posts (operations, projects, technology, information systems) and who sit beside the executive committee. They look at the whole, connect topics to one another, and have no career to protect in the company.
What it does
Six things an executive committee cannot do for itself.
An executive committee sees what each of its members brings to it. The shadow board sees what passes between them.
Prepare decisions
The agenda, the elements missing to decide, the options that are really open. A decision that reaches a meeting poorly prepared comes back to a meeting the following week.
Stress-test
The devil's advocate role, played without a power stake: what makes this plan fail, who carries it, with what means, and what happens if the main assumption falls?
Say the unsaid
A voice with nothing to protect says what nobody dares to voice: the project everyone knows is lost, the manager who is exhausting their team, the client who is leaving.
Connect topics
A project's delay, falling margin, a team's staff turnover and the choice of a software often share a cause. It only shows when finances, teams, projects and the information system are looked at together.
Follow up on what was decided
Each meeting starts from the previous one's commitments: what was done, what was not, and why. A decision without follow-up is only an intention.
Hand over, then leave
The goal is an executive committee that runs its own steering rituals. The shadow board spaces out, then stops: our success is measured at the moment you no longer need us.
After the crisis
A crisis that has been handled leaves a convalescent organization.
This is often where everything is played out again. The turnaround put projects back on track, clients regained confidence, teams can breathe. Then the consultant leaves, daily pressure returns, and the old reflexes with it.
An operational crisis intervention is intense: several days a week in the field, quick decisions, tight steering. It cannot last, and it must not last. What must last are the rituals it put in place: the committee that decides, the tracking of commitments, the teams' voice coming up.
The shadow board is the natural relay for this phase. The same outside view, which now knows your organization, stays present at a low pace, one or two meetings a month, while the new habits take hold without it.
- It keeps the memory of the crisis. It knows where the drift came from, and recognizes it if it returns.
- It costs a fraction of the intervention. A prepared and debriefed meeting, not a full-time presence.
- It spares the business leader from loneliness. After a crisis, the temptation is to take everything back in hand. An outside peer helps delegate without letting go.
- It stops by itself. No minimum term: when the committee runs on its own, there is no reason left to pay.
Other situations
When a shadow board makes sense without a crisis.
Growth that outruns the organization
Going from fifty to a hundred people in a year changes the nature of leadership work. Informal channels are no longer enough, and nobody has time to replace them.
An executive committee in silos
Each director defends their own scope, cross-functional topics have no owner, and every trade-off climbs to the business leader. See our analysis of executive committee silos.
A major decision ahead
A reorganization, the choice of an enterprise resource planning system, an acquisition, a response to a decisive call for tenders. A view that has already lived through these decisions spares you from discovering them at your own expense.
A business leader alone at the top
Leading wears you down faster than you think, especially when nobody around the table can contradict without risk. The shadow board is a peer, not a subordinate or a shareholder.
How it runs
How a shadow board works.
- A free 30-minute strategy interview. You describe the situation; we say whether a shadow board answers it, or whether something else would answer it better.
- A first listening meeting. We attend the executive committee as it is held, changing nothing. This is where the gaps between what is said and what happens become visible.
- Each meeting: preparation, session, debrief. The preparation reviews the agenda and what is missing to decide; the written debrief says what was decided, what was not, and the risks left open.
- Individual interviews if needed. With a committee member, a manager, a project manager: this is operational mentoring, billed per session.
- The exit. When the committee runs its own rituals, the pace slows, then stops. Nothing commits you beyond the next meeting.
What it costs
The price of a meeting, not of an engagement.
Our prices are public, which is rare in consulting. They let you do the calculation before calling us.
€1,000 excl. VAT
per shadow board meeting
Preparation, session and written debrief included. Excluding travel expenses.
€24,000 excl. VAT
a year at two meetings a month
The calculation: 2 meetings × 12 months × €1,000 excl. VAT. At one meeting a month, half.
0
minimum term
You stop whenever you want; we ourselves suggest spacing out once the committee runs on its own.
This annual budget compares to a few days of a classic consulting engagement. The detail, backed by public figures, is on our page cost comparison: consulting firm, interim management and shadow board.
Why it works
A cross-functional reading, which is rare.
Connecting projects, contracts, teams, finances and the information system at the same time is not a skill learned in a seminar.
This reading is the natural way of thinking of high-intellectual-potential profiles, those who explore all the avenues at once rather than one after another. They are rare: one person in forty-four, and this figure can be demonstrated. An SME does not recruit this profile into an executive post: it is not a question of budget, it is a question of supply.
orgatypik's practitioners combine this way of thinking with more than twenty years of posts held: operations management, project management, technical management, information systems management. This is not psychology: it is a way of seeing the whole organization. We explain it on our page Gifted at work.
Do you lead with this way of thinking yourself?
A business leader who thinks fast and wide rarely lacks ideas. What is missing is someone to talk to who keeps up at the same speed, and an organization that turns their intuitions into decisions that hold. That is the subject of our page Gifted business leader.
What it is not
Neither a board of directors, nor a coach, nor an interim manager.
| Arrangement | What it does | What it does not do |
|---|---|---|
| Board of directors | Oversees management on behalf of shareholders, votes, bears liability. | Does not prepare operational decisions week after week. |
| Executive coach | Works on the person's stance and questioning. | Does not rule on the substance: the project, the margin, the organization. |
| Interim manager | Takes a post for a set period and holds it. | Does not stay beside the committee: sits on it in someone's place. |
| Classic consulting engagement | Diagnoses, recommends, delivers a report. | Does not stay to check that the recommendations are followed. |
| orgatypik shadow board | Prepares, stress-tests and follows up the executive committee's decisions, meeting after meeting. | Does not decide in your place, and does not settle in: it stops when the committee runs on its own. |
Frequently asked questions
What we are asked about the shadow board.
What is a shadow board in business?
The term has three senses. In industry, it is a lean tool board. In governance, it is a parallel board with no decision-making power: either a committee of internal employees that the leadership consults (also called a shadow executive committee), or, as at orgatypik, one or two experienced outside executives who prepare, stress-test and follow up the executive committee's decisions.
How much does a shadow board cost?
At orgatypik, €1,000 excl. VAT per meeting, preparation and written debrief included, excluding travel expenses, with no minimum term. At two meetings a month, the year comes to €24,000 excl. VAT. Comparisons with a consulting engagement and interim management are on our cost comparison page.
How often does it meet?
At the pace of your executive committee, most often once or twice a month. After a crisis, the pace can be tighter at first, then spaces out as the committee runs its own rituals.
How is it different from a board of directors?
A board of directors has a mandate from the shareholders; it oversees and votes. The shadow board has no mandate and no vote: it works with the leadership on operational decisions, and responsibility remains entirely the business leader's.
Do we need to be in a crisis to call on a shadow board?
No. It makes the most sense after a crisis, so that the rituals put in place hold, but it also serves rapid growth, an executive committee in silos or a major decision to prepare.
What about confidentiality?
Everything said in committee stays in committee. We name no client without their agreement, and our case studies never link a name to a difficulty.
An outside view on your next executive committee?
30 minutes to describe the situation and find out whether a shadow board answers it.
Free strategy interview