An Attention Architecture for Directors Who Want Their Time Back
As a director, you know the feeling. Friday night, and the board papers land – an average of 226 pages, often before you even touch the annexures (Board Intelligence, 2025).
By Monday morning, many directors I speak with feel they're walking into meetings already carrying a cognitive overload that can undermine the very judgement they're appointed to exercise. It's a common challenge, and "too much information" is a difficult defence when strategic clarity is paramount.
The hidden cost of this information flood is significant. Research shows board packs have ballooned by 30% since 2019, with some even hitting 1,000 pages (Board Intelligence, 2025).
Neuroscience tells us that when our working memory becomes saturated, the prefrontal cortex – our hub for strategic reasoning – can default to basic threat management.
This isn't about a lack of diligence; it's about how our brains are wired. In research I conducted with my colleagues, we observed: "The processing of information in itself is neither wise nor foolish...the foundational activity that leads to creative, context-appropriate solutions is reflection" (King, Norbury, & Rooney, 2022, p. 2).
So, how can you create space for that crucial reflection?
The Attention Regulation Challenge
In my work with Professor Richard Badham on the framework of mindfulness orientations, we identified a key challenge for boards, one you might recognize: the "individual mindfulness" challenge. This is about developing your capacity for attention regulation and metacognition (thinking about your thinking) in high-stakes environments (2019).
Further research I undertook with Dr. Vince Murdoch, drawing on the Mindful Board Assessment Survey (MBAS), consistently showed that directors like you need systematic approaches to manage cognitive load while maintaining strategic focus (2021). The assessment framework we developed recognises that awareness, attention, and acceptance are foundational skills that you can deliberately cultivate rather than just assume.
The 3-Filter Funnel -A Tool for Your Board
To help boards navigate this, I developed the 3-Filter Funnel, drawing from our published Mindful Leadership Matrix. This gatekeeping framework is a practical tool you can use to apply three sequential tests to the information deluge:
- Strategic Relevance: Ask your team (and yourself): which purpose pillar or value driver does this item serve? If papers don't clearly connect with your board's strategic priorities, they might be better redirected to management dashboards.
- Risk Criticality: Evaluate: could ignoring this matter threaten your organization's solvency, license, or reputation? Critical risks should be elevated for board decisions, while peripheral concerns can be addressed in monitoring reports.
- Decision Readiness: Confirm: is your board actually being asked to decide on this today? Half-developed proposals can consume precious discussion time without enabling resolution.
Between each filter, I encourage boards to introduce a silent five-second pause. This simple micro-practice, an "attention" component from the matrix, can help shift your board from reactive scanning to more intentional inquiry.
Four Moves to Implement Immediately
| Action | Implementation | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| 100/150 Rule | Cap papers at 100 pages with 150-word executive briefs covering decision sought, strategy link, and cost of delay. | Preserves cognitive bandwidth for analysis rather than information processing. |
| Discernment Bell | 30 seconds of silence before each agenda block to establish shared focus. | Activates the "attention regulation" capability identified in mindfulness research (King & Badham, 2019). |
| Tag the Agenda | Label items DECIDE / DISCUSS / NOTE. NOTE items get max five-minute allocation. | Allocates cognitive resources in proportion to the importance of the decision. |
| Quarterly Attention Audit | Log minutes spent across Strategy, Risk, Talent, Operations, and Compliance categories. | Creates awareness of collective attention patterns, enabling conscious adjustment (King & Murdoch, 2021). |
Building Systematic Attention Practices
The MBAS research I was involved in emphasizes that mindful boards develop both individual and collective capabilities. This means moving beyond ad hoc improvements to a more systematic attention architecture. Here’s a simple three-step experiment you and your board can try:
- Run your upcoming board pack through the 3-Filter Funnel, deferring anything that doesn't clearly pass all gates.
- At the outset of your next meeting, try allocating 100 "attention points" across agenda categories. Then, re-check that allocation mid-meeting to see where focus actually flowed. This can be very revealing for your team.
- Consider pairing a newer director on your board with a veteran colleague to capture post-meeting observations about what felt redundant versus essential.
These insights can become the foundation for refining your board's approach in subsequent cycles.
The Strategic Value of Attention Design
As Boston Consulting Group (BCG - 2024) research notes, modern boards like yours face unprecedented complexity, requiring new competencies and agile responses. Information architecture becomes a critical capability for you to manage this. When your board implements systematic attention design, it creates the space for the reflective thinking that wisdom requires. Instead of drowning in detail, you and your fellow directors can focus on the strategic conversations that create long-term value for your stakeholders.
I believe that “Mindfulness, in all its forms, highlights the nature and value of thought and action based on attending to context, construction and critique—phenomena that the various ‘turns’ in organisational studies have emphasised as crucially significant for understanding and intervening in organisational life” (King & Badham, 2021, p. 16). My hope is that by applying these principles, you can foster this in your own boardroom.
Resource Download for You
Board-Pack Mindfulness Audit aligned to the 3-Filter Funnel methodology.
References
- Board Intelligence. (2025). State of Board Effectiveness.
- Boston Consulting Group. (2024). The Expanding Agenda for Boards of Directors.
- King, E., & Badham, R. (2019). Leadership in uncertainty. Organizational Dynamics, 48(4), 100674.
- King, E., & Badham, R. (2021). Mindfulness at work: A critical re-view. Organization, 28(4), 531–554. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508419888897
- King, E., Norbury, K., & Rooney, D. (2022). Coaching for leadership wisdom. Organizational Dynamics, 51(2), 100815.
- King, E., & Murdoch, V. (2021). Mindful Board Assessment Survey. EGOS Conference.
Next article:
Discernment Over Distraction: Maintaining generative director mindsets when volatility becomes the norm.
