What is Chai Board?

Many people ask about Chai Board; how it came into existence, what is done in chai board, how it is conducted, how long it takes, what is its benefit etc. 

'Chai Board is a service developed by Marg Atreya Consulting, way back in 2007 to help the business organisations to make the 'business' meetings effective. It was designed after years of experience and research.

Before jotting the attributes of chai board, let us scan the  environment prevalent in many of the organisations. There is a subtle, intangible, but real pain in most of the organisations. One common overheard statement in most of the organisations is " how am I supposed to get my work done with all of these meetings?'  Meetins are hated and tolerated by many and most believe that it is a waste of time. Yes it is ... if not conducted , moderated or facilitated properly.

There is the frustration of calling a meeting to make a decision and watching the meeting spiral into a battle between rival departments, divisions, partners, product lines, business units etc or get lost in confusion over the meaning of a technical term, in proving ones point of view as more superior etc. These meetings first has the frustration of reaching a decision and then having to abandon the decision because there was'nt enough 'buy-in'. This is the pain of fragmented 'social capital'.

Part of the pain is a misunderstanding of the nature of the problems at hand.  The failed meetings are due to a special class of problems called 'wicked problems". Business organisations have them plenty, but they are niether recognised or are attempted to be solved in logical method , with tools / techniques meant to handle well defined problems. Wicked problems are ill-defined ones and a force of fragmentation. Most business organisations, small or big,  today have significant wicked elements. Most of the business owners and managers are not recognising the presence of such phenomenon instead they sub- consciously accept the situation and apply what they know best. In meetings they follow the traditional way of agenda making, following it with tick marks as the ponts are discussed and concluding the meeting as the agenda is completed.

Another source of pain is the social complexity, ie the number and diversity of players who are involved in the business. The more people involved in a business the more social complexity and the more diverse these people are , the more social complexity. Often people who come to the meetings see themmseves as more seperate than united. In many of the organisation the uniting force /system / theme is missing,

Thus presence of wicked problems and social complexity makes the meeting less effective. As a solution to overcome these problems Chai Boad was designed.

Chai Board is an opportunity to share business insights face-to-face


Chai Board is a small informal gathering (3 to 20 people) assembled to engage in 'fertile dialogues' to develop and share insights.

Time suited for Chai Board is mid morning or mid afternoon ar early evening when participants are relaxed and enjoying a cup of tea.

The duration of Chai board may be 90 minutes or more depending on the enthusiasm and energy of people. (usually it takes 120 minutes minimum)

The heart of Chai Board is dialogues.......

For want of honest, direct and open conversations, careers are derailed and

organizations lose money. For lack of truth telling, bad behavior is tolerated and,

 in fact, spreads, infecting others who become cynical or indifferent.

Fertile  dialogues are required to float the realities of business and to grow the business.

Indicators of fertile Dialogues are openness, informality and energy.

Chai Board facilitates fertile dialogues.

Dialogue is the core of business team work and the basic unit of work.

Conversations can be stilted, politicised, a personality biopsy, domineering, fragmented, clouting, masked, adversarial, vengeful etc

or

Conversations can be reality based, asking right questions, listening oriented, empathatic, solution oriented, authentic, debating the issue etc.

Chai board focusses on the latter kind of conversations.

The Chai Board value point : Spending time in dialogues in the prresence of a facilitator creates insights and enhances learning.

Chai Board captures moments of truth.
Chai Board engages people in spontaneous / fertile dialogues
Chai Board triggers alternate thinking routes
Chai Board facilitates insight learning
Chai Board creates genuine bonds

We are proud to overhear that our clients are using the term often ... such as .... 'Lets have a chai board tomorrow...." indicating this is distinct from their other routine meetings.

contributed by Sasikanth Prabhu