One Minute Governance

This is the first and only episode of its kind. A long scripted story about life, death, snacks, Reconciliation, feelings, The Matrix, the desert, and good corporate governance.

FULL TRANSCRIPT HERE: http://groundupgovernance.substack.com/p/bonus-podcast-good-governance-is

Well, we’ve made it. 49 conditions, why they matter, and a little bit about what to do about them. That was the headline of season 4 of OMG: what are some conditions we might cultivate as corporate leaders in service of making decisions. But there’s also an important subtext, at least for me. The subtext is this: “I was wrong.” To be fair, I’m pretty sure I continue to be wrong, but at least now I’m aware. If you’d played the last 52 episodes of this podcast for me even 5 years ago, I’d have basically just scoffed. “Who has time for any of that nonsense when there’s so much work to do, so much at stake, so many boxes to tick, etc.?” Is how I imagine I might have responded. But now, having gone through the work of conceiving, writing and recording this season, I’m more convinced than ever. Just think: 49 conditions and it barely scratches the surface of what’s possible. Even so, if we were interested in how they might affect our decisions and intentional about cultivating them for ourselves, for our peers, for those affected by what we do…just imagine. We’d show up and be more cognitively activated, better informed, more socially cohesive, more efficient. It almost feels like cheating, but I promise it’s not. I think we’re just finally zeroing in on what actually matters in corporate governance. I don’t regret being wrong for (ugh) 21ish years, but I sure am glad to be more right than I used to be. Thanks SO much for listening to OMG. I really want to know what you think of what we’ve done this season. PLEASE consider subscribing and, even better, leaving a review through your podcast platform. And don’t hesitate to reach out to me through my website mattfullbrook.com. See you again in season 5, whenever that is.

If there’s any part of my overall vibe, and of season 4 of OMG in particular, that you find a bit annoying or immature or naïve or whatever, I bet it’s that I’ve got this general optimism that the business of corporate leadership can be more fun and less formal. Actually, it’s not just that it CAN be more fun and less formal, but also that it SHOULD be! As in, the formality of the status quo is working against good governance. I really, sincerely believe it. Trust me, I’m not trying to undermine the seriousness of the jobs of executives and directors. This is not a joke to me, and there are very real and important consequences to doing the job poorly. But honestly, that just makes me more confident that we’re on to something here. We have absolutely no evidence suggesting that the typical solemn formality of boardrooms is any good. And we have plenty of evidence from the science of decision-making that we should be experimenting and socializing and finding ways to create space for a diversity of approaches and perspectives. So, I suppose what I’m saying is that a defining characteristic of a great board is its willingness to let go of formality – even in the environment of a regular board meeting – when doing so will serve the decisions at hand. Do me a favour, start thinking now about how you might cultivate the conditions for a bit of play or wonder or experimentation at your next board meeting, even just for a few minutes.

Because of the accidental bonus episodes I mentioned last episode, here we are at episode 200 (yay!) but we still have this one and two more to go this season. Here we go: Many of the boards I’ve met feel more than a little anxiety about conversations that happen outside of the confines of the on-the-record parts of board meetings. You know what I’m talking about. “Look at those three over there: always gossiping about something.” And it’s true! Side conversations can be exclusionary, faction-forming, and suspicion-arousing. But they’re also entirely unavoidable in a normal human environment. When people are together, they tend to group and hang out and chat. Can we all accept that it’s not an inherently bad thing. The problems come from information asymmetry, relationship asymmetry, exclusion – intentional or otherwise – of specific individuals, and the potential for inscrutable deal-making. It’s obvious how all of these things can impact decisions. The most important first step is to, like, actually talk about this stuff. Concerned about something? Say so – without accusing anyone of anything, please. Feeling left out? Say so – again, without accusation, please. Have some ideas about how to manage or bridge the potential problems? I promise you there are others in the room who want to hear them. Want some other ideas, check out the article Back Channels in the Boardroom by Gardner and Peterson in HBR September 2019. Just promise me you won’t let things fester.

Something weird has happened on OMG. I just realized as I’m recording this episode that I have too many episodes! That means you get two bonus episodes in season 4. Hooray? Anyway, I bet you’ve found yourself in lots of situations in your life where you had to make conversations happen. Maybe an uncomfortable lull at a dinner party. Maybe you’ve been voluntold to lead a meeting. Or maybe it’s just your job to get in rooms and get people going. No matter your approach, there’s a pretty high probability that at least *someone* in the room found you annoying or boring or corny or whatever. Why am I so confident? Because there’s NO way to facilitate a conversation in a way that guarantees universal adoration. Making matters worse, there’s quite a bit of evidence that the more we do to be loved, the less likely it is that our audience will learn and retain anything. In other words, edutainment is basically junk food: tasty but substance-free. It’s true! The more we do as facilitators and educators to provide our audience with shortcuts to immediate results or success, the better they will evaluate us, and the less they will retain in the long-term. So, in some ways, the best facilitators are willing to sacrifice the adoration of the crowd – at least a little – in favour of leaving them with the tools to succeed in the long term. Whoever is facilitating your boardroom conversations, and for whatever purpose, the greatest gifts you can give them are thoughtful feedback, patience, and a commitment to your work. There’s a hidden message here, though, which is that facilitation does matter because discussion matters. If you’re starting to feel like your board meetings are mostly info dumps, a bit of edutainment probably wouldn’t hurt.

I have feelings about governance education. On the one hand, the complexity and pace of change of external conditions that affect *every* organization means that basically every director and executive has their work cut out for them when it comes to staying up to date. On the other hand, education on those external factors – even when it’s designed for boards – basically never comes with guidance on how to, y’know, actually do something useful with that education once you’re back in the regular world of a board meeting. At least in my experience. Sure, they might say “here are some questions you could ask about, I dunno, AI and copyright or whatever,” but we all know that question asking does not a great director make. Maybe more concerning is that most education that has “corporate governance” in the title ALSO doesn’t make much of an effort to empower directors and executives to be more awesome at their job. It just seems to be obsessed with case studies of catastrophes, explosions, lurid affairs, and whatever. But understanding some worst-case scenarios is not the same as showing up and being a great director. Is there a moral to this story? If there is, then I think it’s to 1) make liberal use of your organization’s education budget by consuming every course, conference and publication that might give you new and useful knowledge, and 2) invest time and effort into imagining how you’re going to take that knowledge and use it in service of cultivating effective conditions for making decisions in your boardroom.

Spoiler alert: I’m a corporate governance consultant. Not only that, but I’m ultra cynical about the value of reinforcing “normal” corporate governance conventions. Back in episode 79 I tried to provide some guidance about when and why to engage governance consultants – I listened back just now and surprisingly don’t disagree with what I said back then. That said, I really don’t think most organizations are as intentional as they probably should be when engaging consultants for governance-related stuff. Like, what if we had big expectations? Maybe our financial statements should come with a side of audit committee coaching. Maybe our executive compensation advice should come with a heaping scoop of and leadership and team-building facilitation. Most of all, maybe our board evaluations aren’t complete unless we get a decadent dessert of dreaming and co-creation of an exciting boardroom future. What I’m getting at is that it’s not just boards and executives who are stuck in the status quo. Heck, governance consultants are largely responsible for DESIGNING the status quo, and of course reinforcing it, too. And there’s no reason for them to do anything different if they think their clients are happy.

Last episode, we talked a bit about stakes as a condition we can cultivate by just giving ourselves some stakes-free time to practice. In other words, just get rid of them. Stakes are a complex condition, though. Like, if there’s an emergency that threatens to kill your organization, that’s gonna affect the way you need to show up, compared to business as usual. Or if you’re my little corporation that can succeed or fail without affecting, well, anyone really. Compare that to, say, Silicon Valley Bank or FTX where their failure affected a LOT of people very seriously. In other words, sometimes we have no control at all over the ifs and hows of the stakes of our decisions. Sometimes the result of the decision has the potential to significantly benefit or harm a lot of people. But, honestly, this just reinforces the importance of intentionally cultivating the rest of the conditions that we *do* have control over. Ultimately, what we’re trying to do is set ourselves up the best we can to do the most good and the least bad through the decisions we make as corporate leaders. When the stakes are high, good governance matters more than ever.

For a few years now, it’s really stuck with me that we expect directors and executives to walk into boardrooms and just be awesome. But we don’t really tell them what awesome looks like, and we certainly don’t give them any time to figure it out. Back in episode 70 I talked about the fact that thinking strategically takes practice. And it’s true! Making matters worse, we don’t really give boards any time to practice – every moment is like game time. More than that, they only get to “play the game” once a month at most – often way less than that. I get it. Boards are serious business, and we recruit people who are SUPPOSED to understand how to get the job done well, even under sub-optimal circumstances. If we’re lucky, we get some great stuff done under those conditions. But who wants to leave governance to luck, when we could build and maintain our skills through intentional practice? So, what does practice look like? The most important thing is to take away the stakes. In other words, we’re not making a consequential decision or learning about a complex part of the business or assessing a critical situation. We’re just practicing! The next most important thing is to decide what you need to practice. Struggling to “be strategic”? Not asking great questions? Presentations too boring? Whatever it is, identify something you could stand to get better at, remove the stakes, and give your board and management team some space to play around and try some stuff. Whatever you learn, good or bad, take note and do things a little bit better when the stakes are back on the table.

Of all the things that have been turned on their heads since we’ve gotten used to virtual meetings, maybe the most significant unsung benefit is our ability to accommodate a variety of geographical locations in the same meeting. Remember how hard it used to be when we thought we had to choose between finding that elusive sliver of the calendar when we could get our board members from around the world in the same room at the same time, or else have the dreaded old school blended meeting of in-person and (gag) conference phone? Thankfully, we’ve embraced some better alternatives. But geography matters for other reasons, too. If you have directors in different parts of the world, for example, what if you tried bringing board meetings to them every once in a while? It would be a good faith gesture *and* potentially an inspiring change of scenery for the board. If you have operations or impact around the world, what if you planned board meetings in locations that enabled the board to witness what’s going on in real life? What about a short trip to cottage country or a bougie excursion to a tropical beach, or a subtle shift to the other side of town. New sights, new sounds, different restaurants, different stuff to do on break, new people to meet. And don’t try to pretend like this stuff is just boondoggles. A different environment, even subtly different, will have an impact on the way people show up.