These resources are available to members of the Directors’ Brief Academy for immediate download.
Some are for personal use, some for trainers and some for teams to use on away days and corporate retreats.
Free Downloads
Access these resources as a reward for joining The Directors’ Brief.
Resources
Aspiring Director’s Foundation Pack
How to prepare for your role as a director and ensure you become more confident, more competent, more quickly.
Comprehensive information pack covering fundamental knowledge, how to become a director, what to do when offered a directorship - and whether to accept.
The Virtual Board Meeting
Check the rules and best practice for running your board meetings online.
This training simulation has been designed for directors, secretaries and senior managers to practise vital meeting skills, with the additional challenge of being physically separated.
The Zoom Meeting
The Zoom meeting is a real-time learning exercise to teach meetings skills in a virtual meeting scenario. Additional features include: handling redundancies and pros and cons of a home-working strategy.
Can form part of a facilitated training programme or be self-administered by the team.
A Manager’s Introduction to Coaching
This comprehensive resource pack for trainers, coaches, managers, and HR professionals who want to introduce managers to the basics of coaching is suitable for a full day or half day 'Introduction to Coaching' workshop.
Exercises
Imperial plc In-tray Exercise
This in-tray simulation tests individuals' people management skills in a "real-world" scenario where they are forced to sift through a complex mountain of information and make difficult decisions under pressure.
Prisoners’ Dilemma
The Prisoners' Dilemma is a well known trust game which helps teams understand about working together for a win-win outcome.
It isolates the components of trust and demonstrates the concept of win-win to bring greater understanding of the processes involved in building, maintaining, losing and regaining trust.
Rigger - a team construction game
This game can be used to help teams understand skills, behaviours and techniques that work in a high pressure situation.
It aids communication and learning about managing practical problems. It is useful for drawing out the differences between managing a project and managing routine work.
Hollow Square
This game can be used to help teams understand the impact of communication between those who develop plans and those who have to implement them.
It also highlights helpful and not so helpful behaviours when planning, assigning or completing tasks.
New Ideas Toolkit
This toolkit for managers and trainers includes 20 pages of tools ranging from classic brainstorming to morphological matrices and beyond.
Each tool comes with clear instructions on how to use it along with suggestions for timing, materials and when it might be suitable.
Making it Happen
This 33 page guide and workbook is for those who would like to find the easiest and most enjoyable way to make their goals happen.
It contains practical exercises and useful advice designed to help you find your motivation, overcome procrastination and begin to make your future into reality.
Technical Papers and Templates
Guidelines for the Appointment of Investment Directors
When negotiating funding terms, investors will often ask for a seat on the board; significant shareholders might have the right to nominate one or more directors and activists and pressure groups might attempt to demand board representation.
The role of a director is to add value to a company, whilst ensuring adoption of ethical and legal good practice. The job of an 'investment director' is to represent the interests of an investor in a company. However, their first duty of care is to this company, whilst still representing the interests of the investor. This can lead to potential conflicts of interest.
"Guidelines for the Appointment of Investment Directors" discusses these issues, rehearses the legal duties of a director and indicates the desired competencies and qualities of candidates.
It suggests a process for selection and nomination of candidates and defines a job description.
Job Description for Appointment of a Company Chairperson
A company chairperson acts as the company's leading representative to the outside world. They are responsible for strategic matters, setting high governance standards and ensuring decisions meet legal and regulatory requirements.
Chairs play a pivotal role in increasing the effectiveness of the board and individual directors, as a well as ensuring there is effective communication with the leadership team, acting as a sounding boar for the Chief Executive and liaising with the Company Secretary over agendas and board meetings.
Appointment of a suitable candidate is, therefore, key to the long term success of an organisation.