Bill Campbell helped me understand how he did it. Bill would always say that if there was any potentially surprising or controversial topic, the CEO should go to every board member, one-on-one, to walk them through it before the meeting. That allowed them to ask questions, offer different perspectives, and then the CEO had time to take those thoughts back to the team and revise their thinking, presentation, and plan.

There are going to be surprises no matter how well you know a company. Learning about them early is challenging because employees, even at the highest levels, are reluctant to share troubling information. Learning what you need to know requires rigorous questioning while conveying in a compelling way that you absolutely want people to speak openly.

A CEO coming in from the outside needs to emphasize getting a good fix on the full range of business operations, the strengths and weaknesses of the leadership team, and the nature of the culture.

Building strong relationships with your board members is another top priority of a new CEO. Yes, you’ve gone through an intensive interview process with them, and they’ve just selected you. But in the words of one CEO: “You won't know if you were selected by an inch or a mile.” Some directors may disagree with your vision and plans; some may even be dead set against you, but won’t share those sentiments with you.

Once you’re attending board meetings, you can strengthen your relationship with the group if you don’t do too much talking. Instead, prompt discussion by asking directors plenty of questions. The boardroom is one room where the temptation to prove you’re the smartest person in the room can be especially strong but especially off-putting.

Ann Hackett advises really engaging directors in ongoing problem-solving. “A CEO should share the biggest challenges and want the board’s thinking about them.” She’s seen some make the mistake of thinking “they have to have solved everything, and they shouldn’t bring problems to the board.” But for the relationship to work optimally, “you have to be able to go to deep places and challenge one another.” You want to be doing all you can to ensure that the board is, as she put it, “a learning organism.” She recommends regularly providing them high-quality information about what the company, and the industry, is facing. Also help them “get close to the business and customers,” which a CEO can facilitate in many ways, such as by setting up factory visits or meetings with members of the management team. If you do this extra work, she advises, “then a board thinks differently about everything they’re doing. Governance becomes more strategic. Risk becomes more strategic.