BLT Meeting(*): “Who would you have on your ideal Board of Directors?”

Whilst perhaps lacking the global appeal of ‘Fantasy Football Manager’, this fortnight’s topic offered up an interesting self-analysis angle; i.e. as a business owner, what are your areas of weakness that would benefit from outside help?

“A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship.”

– John D. Rockefeller (1874-1960)

Qualities required from an ‘Ideal Director’

Inspirational
Ability to spot opportunities, not problems
Complements existing skill set
From outside the industry – not shackled by convention, able to think outside the box

Hence, an ‘Ideal Director’ would complement existing skill sets, ensuring that the sum of the parts became greater than the whole.

‘Ideal Directors’ mentioned by the BLT group:

Deborah Meaden (from Dragon’s Den) – for her ability to ‘tell it like it is’, and her focus upon financial rigour.
Alex Polizzi, or Sir John Harvey-Jones (The Troubleshooters) – for their ability to see the big picture, to identify the crucial missing piece of the jigsaw.
JK Rowling – for her industry experience and her values, the ability to intally a can-do culture.

“The Five Messages Leaders Must Manage”

This set me thinking – what are the common qualities missing from the standard Board of Directors?

I came across this article by John Hamm in the Harvard Business Review, written by a leader who had ticked all the boxes, having sat on plenty of boards in his time.

He identified the need for precise communication as the single most important function of a Board; for example, in a hospital operating theatre, there is a defined hierarchy, with set procedures and a bespoke medical language to ensure that everybody knows exactly what is going on at any given moment and what the other team members are doing. They have to, because lives are on the line – there is no room for sloppy communication here…unlike in business…

5 key messages an ‘Ideal Director’ would address:

Organisational Structure
Financial Results
Leader’s sense of his/her job
Time Management
Corporate Culture

1. Organisational structure – should be thought of as a flexible resource to optimise resources, rather than as an employee management tool

2. Financial results – the danger here is in defining ‘results’ too narrowly and making the figures the ‘be all and end all’. Results should not be a punitive weapon to assign blame, but a useful learning tool.

3. Leader’s sense of his/her job – ineffective leaders believe they are always right and it’s everybody else that ‘doesn’t get it’. Effective leaders are curious, collaborative and encourage others to contribute ideas.

4. Time management – this should probably read ‘Goal management’ – time is inflexible, it stops for nobody, so sometimes compromises need to be make to deliver a product or project in its entirety, but perhaps on a reduced scale.

5. Corporate Culture – this is created by focusing upon the right goals and ensuring that everybody buys into them.

Group breakout session

“If I need £20k, it’s best not think about it as needing £20k from 1 person…all I need is £1k from 20 different people.”

We then split into three groups to convene as a ‘Fantasy Board of Directors’ in respect of three different BLT member problems:

3 Peaks – how to plan and navigate without a guide
IT challenges – regarding a large customer
Staff recruitment & retention – for a medium-sized firm

I won’t go into the specifics here, but in all three cases, by airing the issue with a wider group of people, some of the ‘5 Messages’ were bought into play; e.g. for the staff retention challenge, by questioning the organisational structure and flexibility, we explored the possibility of hiring previously experienced mothers looking to return to work part-time.

Conclusion

I’ll leave the last word to Bruce, who always rounds our BLT meetings off with some words of wisdom. This one, coming so soon after Valentine’s Day, seemed rather appropriate: