Insightfulbodassessment

Analogically, governance is not about stopping the corporate vehicle, but to steer it in the right direction with the proper speed.

The more complex an organization is; the more effective governance needs to be put in place for improving management maturity. In the corporate scope, there is a variety of complexity; for example, hierarchical complexity is applied to leaders' minds, their roles, and their organizational cultures. Corporate boards play a significant role in strategy oversight, policy-making, performance monitoring, or talent development. 

The management discipline and GRC practices are more interdependent than ever. High-effective board directors need to scrutinize varying complexity factors of strategy management by digging into the root causes; and optimize governance practices to improve organizational effectiveness, performance, and maturity.

Assess decision processes and decision-makers objectively: Change is the new normal with increasing pace, many say that the multitude of gaps (thinking, knowledge, innovation, strategy execution, etc.) are enlarged because different industries, organizations, functions, and individuals evolve with varying speed. The success of strategy management depends on how effectively and synchronously the organization can make collective decisions across the hierarchy to solve problems timely. Corporate boards oversee business strategy, it’s important for them to work closely with management to scrutinize decision-making processes as well as the quality of decision-makers. When strategy management is ineffective, they need to ponder: Is it because decision processes and decision-makers are in general the unsuccessful kernel? When and under what circumstances do the decision processes show dysfunctional symbols and lead to ineffective problem-solving? When and under what circumstances is information not being handled properly or interpreted accurately and causes misjudgment? When and under what circumstances do the logical thoughts of decision-makers become clouded with mistaken judgments or beliefs? How to improve the overall decision making maturity of the business?

Decisions are necessary as a result of limited resources in time, knowledge, capital, and people. If information is unavailable, or compromised, it will delay or decrease decision effectiveness, complex problem-solving and mislead the business in the wrong direction. Corporate board’s decision oversights help to close gaps, break down decision bottlenecks by specifying the rules and procedures for making decisions in corporate affairs. The entire decision-making processes, especially at the strategic level, include understanding the need, engaging key stakeholders, ensuring effective communication, collecting feedback and weighing them appropriately with the right people, assessing alternatives, developing consensus, planning, executing, and measuring. Good corporate governance enables a good decision-making system and a good controlling system. It can assure the corporation’s operation under the correct directions and behaviors correctly.

Co-develop and oversee talent strategy as an integral component of business strategy: Corporate boards oversee business strategies; good directorship is about creating the greatest value to groom top leaders and guide talent development. Strategy management will fail if people are put in the wrong place to solve problems, as often it causes more problems later on. A solid talent strategy needs to be well-defined based on the business’s long-term perspective well mixing with short-term needs. The corporate board will help to set the principles, innovate talent management, inspire digital fitness, adapt their workforce planning and development strategies to ensure their digital workforce is highly engaged, innovative, and transformative, to unleash collective potential.

To look forward, the businesses must be alert to the digital dynamic environment; it’s a strategic imperative for top board leaders and talent managers to see talent from different angles, forecast talent demand, and embrace futuristic trends. Corporate board directors can contribute to talent development by setting good policies to encourage desired changes, asking the management critical questions such as: How do you define talent? How do you measure talent? How can you help people develop their talent? Today’s BoD and talent managers must isolate and address a much broader array of talent risks and take into account a critical need to craft a solid talent strategy that supports business strategy and human capital investment in a consistent and progressive way to ensure business long term prosperity.

Culture and awareness are the most critical aspects of GRC, and can only be implemented in humans: We can't and won't be able to predict or manage every turn or twist of the business, every business is different with its own set of issues and concerns regarding its strategic and inherent risks. Single dimensional business values further Inhibit companies from becoming sustainable and "future proof." More of the "old" does not work anymore. In reality, sometimes governance "standards" can be taken too far and become their own bureaucracy. In that case, innovation would be stifled. Therefore, solid GRC disciplines need to move more and more to be the hub and harbinger of culture and values, and enforce good policies to improve the functioning and transparency of the company.

Analogically, governance is not about stopping the corporate vehicle, but to steer it in the right direction with the proper speed. Many leaders fail to realize that culture will "happen" whether they understand it or not. It is critical to look at culture, staff training, existing processes and technology first, make improvements if necessary, then determine whether new tools would be a good addition to the mix, and advocate the culture of accountability, learning, innovation. A culture change will become imperative as the drive for revenue becomes a key factor in sustainability. Some of the outdated thinking will be replaced by advanced mindsets, the old ways of doing things will give way to new behavioral tendencies that can create the right environment for business to thrive.

The world becomes over-complex, hyper-connected, extremely uncertain and ambiguous than ever, complexity is diverse, ambiguous, and dynamic with unpredictable outcomes. The corporate board’s oversight of crucial business success factors such as people, process, practice, etc, helps the management set good policies for enabling the business to reclaim the right balance of creativity and process, standardization and flexibility; competition and collaboration, etc, improving organizational agility and maturity.

Posted in: Board Room,culture Master,Decision Making,Strategy