BoDs not only need to be forward-thinking, but they also have to be further looking, and guide the business executive team toward the right direction for a longer term.
Building a high-performance corporate board requires multifaceted thinking, dot-connecting, asking insightful questions, taking a balance of multiple perceptions in guiding businesses in the right direction and achieving expected business results.
Is corporate boards able to craft a good strategy to improve leadership performance; are business strategies being implemented the way BoDs expected them to under their oversight? The purpose of the strategy is the creation of competitive advantage by being different and making choices that constrains subsequent decisions. To improve corporate board performance and leadership effectiveness, BoDs should develop a good strategy, diagnose the current issues that cause their ineffectiveness, set principles, and make choices to improve their leadership disciplines.
BoDs also play a role in business strategy oversight. A good strategy is always to set up choices and ensure business as a whole is more optimal than the sum of pieces. So corporate boards need to scrutinize whether the strategic planning is capability based, laser focused on solving crucial business problems, increase business ability to achieve goals, and accelerate the organization's speed to reach the vision smoothly.
Is the corporate board setting the right tone for business culture and talent management? At the core of culture, it’s the leadership that impacts on individual mindset, attitude, or actions, as well as their policy setting on how people accomplish work, etc. Hence, culture is established by those at the top, the corporate board and the top leadership team set the tone of the corporate culture. When the business gets stuck and performance is mediocre, culture needs to be changed to adapt to the emerging trends and pull strategy execution towards the right decision. This is accomplished by sharing a clear vision, establishing strong interdependent relationships, optimizing processes, and developing a set of business practices.
Band-aids/quick fixes are not sufficient for most problem-solving, especially for organizational mindsets or attitude, the cultural thing. The cure comes from within the organization- the collective whole, build a great working environment in which people can take ownership of their works, processes, and deliver better than expected results; appreciate the right things they are doing to improve the overall organizational effectiveness.
Are you getting a lot of unanswered questions raised from management and various stakeholders in the boardroom ? Because great questions challenge conventional thinking, stimulate proactive interactions no matter what the situation, eliminate blind spots and leverage intuitive listening to capture the important information for decision-making. Senior management asks BoDs advice on how to improve their practices in achieving performance excellence. BoDs also ask the management about the status of strategy management, enforce governance disciplines. Insightful inquiries lead to better problem-solving and innovative solutions.
There is the time to ask, and there is the time to answer. In the face of vast areas of unknowns, corporate board directors are the leadership influencer for catalyzing business transformation. One of the most crucial roles of corporate boards is to practice independent thinking in a certain collective way and provide invaluable feedback and deep insight to the management team of the organization and help them improve the management effectiveness and maturity up to the next level.
BoDs not only need to be forward-thinking, but they also have to be further looking, and guide the business executive team toward the right direction for a longer term. They must be competent with unique insight into the right knowledge and experience, bring a broader perspective to complement the management’s view point and orchestrate business transformation smoothly.
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