Feedback helps to not only act but aid to feedforward for either managing change or accelerating performance.
Digital has the “VUCA” characteristics - velocity, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. It implies both business opportunities and risks on the way and change is a new normal. Corporate Board as a high-level governance body plays a crucial role in business advising and monitoring, as well as setting key tones in leadership exemplification and talent development. To overcome the challenges, boards need to develop their own set of digital best and next practice to improve both the organizational performance and their own performance. Here are three aspects of boardroom feedback and feedforward practices.
Identify the feedback gap: Feedback is about how to improve performance; it is always about the future to keep it relevant. The board directorship and leadership need to be future-oriented with navigation competency. Good feedback helps the board improve leadership effectiveness and governance maturity. Boards must set an example of leadership which permeates through the entire organization. The feedback gaps at the board level are possibly caused by a homogeneous team setting, conventional wisdom, or outdated ‘Best Practices.” When people are too “fit in,” think the same and act the same, without challenging each other’s point of view; make the compromise to be the “team player,” or get stuck at the comfort zone, it’s no surprise that the feedback gaps are enlarged, The feedback gaps can only be closed when the board environment is diverse, dynamic, energetic, and innovative. Boards must set an example of leadership which permeates through the entire organization. There is an integration of thinking, people enjoy the creative tension and constructive feedback. Board directors are skeptical, inquisitive, creative; and apply real critical thinking to practice the board's governance duty effectively. Accountability and oversight are all part of the game changes that boards must address, helps the board directors improve leadership effectiveness.
The BoD’s feedback helps to pull management out of the trees to see the forest: Effective boards advise and get al fundamentals right. The BoDs as the business critic need to provide excellent feedback which gives the top management accurate information to improve; great questions to self-aware; and keen insight to gain an in-depth understanding of the digital ecosystem. Not to have critics might make your job easy, but it compromises the board leadership effectiveness. From a business governance perspective, lack of effective feedback management will create barriers to improving organizational maturity. Leadership is the system in vision and wrapped in a culture of openness and emergence. Most board directors are top seasoned business leaders with decades of experiences or deep functional expertise, independent board directors are also the “outliers” who can provide fresh perspectives and share the unique insight. Thus, their feedback - the information gained from their experiences can help business management gain “lesson learned,” and develop the next digital practices. The feedback is not limited and static. There is the mechanism to collect feedback and there is transparency in the follow-up. It’s an expansive and dynamic cycle of continuous feedback, exploration, experience and a more natural process of improvement.
Corporate governance is to make sure that management is doing its job properly. The real BoD's dilemma is that driving the business forward is extremely difficult. It means looking into an unknown future and attempting to define the landscape with its risks and opportunities. Eventually, feedback should always be genuinely proper, precise, and substantive, it is a solution to the problem of cluelessness. Thus, feedback-feedforward practices are important to improve leadership effectiveness and governance maturity.
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