How is your Board operating?

Corporate Boards can be a catalyst of success, or work against growth of your organization: which do you have?

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How is your board?

We live in challenging times, to be sure: one challenge we may not have expected? Our airplane isn’t (seemingly) safe to fly.

Yet, Boeing finds itself in a credibility crisis. Bill George, former Medtronic CEO and now an executive Fellow at Harvard Business School, pointed out a number of issues in a recent article, including the following:

“He’s critical of the string of CEOs selected by the Boeing board over the past 20 or so years. He also faults the Boeing board for not being more engaged in asking the hard questions of management.”
“He’s astonished the board members didn’t show more independence of thought. “If you’ve had four or five successive CEOs who didn’t work out, wouldn’t you say: ‘What did we do wrong?’ ” George said. He’s mystified why board members weren’t more rigorous in evaluating their own approach to interacting with top management.”

Bill George

That was No. 1, that was the fundamental problem,” George said. He added that Boeing is now feeling the pain from “not putting a focus on quality” years ago.
Photo Credit

It’s not just Boeing, of course…

You don’t have to look far and hard to find examples of boardroom drama: Klarna and Rogers, for instance, could probably be the plot for an upcoming Netflix series.

Of course, you as a leader don’t want to run a dysfunctional board, or, if you’re not serving there yet, you want to help your leadership be more effective: ultimately, it can impact you and other stakeholders, too.

Free Resources

to help you

Two women in a meeting, one speaking and gesturing, the other listening intently.

Agenda for the Prepared Board – Aspen Institute

We love this resource from the Aspen Insitute. Be sure to check it out!

“Agenda for the Prepared Board brings us back to business principles, namely, the corporation’s model, and what matters most to the success of the business now and for the foreseeable future. These business fundamentals enable the executive to play offense—to speak powerfully to the specific and critically important elements of long-term performance: the business conditions, resources, and relationships that are key to business continuity and growth.”

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Ron Williams, the former CEO of Aetna

“I made it a point to go see every board member once a year in their place of business and in their environment, and spend time having a dinner with them to make certain that I had a clear sense of their issues and concerns.

When you’ve got 11 people on a board, that can create a cacophony of voices. That one-on-one time can help you understand their issues, and it also gives you the opportunity for what I’ll call “sense-making” for them. Sometimes the board has perceptions that may or may not be grounded in reality. That one-on-one time was really important to help them share their views, make sure they felt understood, and get their individual counsel and advice.” Photo credit.

Ronald A Williams speaking at the World Economic Forum 2010

Speedometer reading 100 km/h, symbolizing leadership acceleration and performance.

The Leadership Accelerator

Transitioning into a new C-suite role is exhilarating, challenging, and demanding all at the same time—a unique combination of intense experiences that may be tough to manage, to say the least. Published by McGraw Hill, The Leadership Accelerator book reveals the research and practices that Deloitte’s Ajit Kambil has undertaken for more than a decade to learn exactly how real-world leaders have successfully transitioned into high-level roles.

Purchase Audiobooks: Audible CAD Audible U.K. Audible US

Purchase Physical Books: Amazon U.K. Amazon US Amazon CAD

Bookshop.org (U.S.)