Rules of Thumb for Company Secretaries: Practical Wisdom or Convenient Fiction?
Company secretaries regularly rely on practical rules of thumb to manage board meetings, prepare papers, draft minutes and maintain effective governance processes. But how reliable are these familiar guidelines? Should board papers contain three, five or ten pages? Should virtual meetings outnumber face-to-face meetings two to one? And is there an ideal period between committee and board meetings? Drawing on practical experience and authoritative Australian governance guidance, this article examines the difference between useful heuristics, professional conventions, potentially misleading generalisations and binding legal requirements. It explores why persuasive evidence may be sufficient to support a practical guideline, why the familiar 80/20 principle cannot establish a rule's reliability, and how company secretaries can decide when to follow a rule of thumb — and when to depart from it. The central message: practical wisdom is valuable, but it must remain subject to professional judgment. I would also recommend internally linking the article to your existing publications on board paper preparation, agenda effectiveness, minutes and governance health checks. This would make the new article part of a coherent collection of practical governance resources.
