How Corporate Boards Can Improve Their Effectiveness

Board service is an excellent method to broaden your perspective and improve your ability to take a look at a company in its entirety rather than focusing on the functional areas you have managed. You’ll also be exposed to a wider variety of problems and issues faced by businesses. For instance, you could be faced with difficult decisions that have a negative impact on people, like deciding to cut redundancies or closing an office. These situations require you to look at the issue at hand and not be swayed by your own emotional reactions or the opinions of your team.

Another issue that is raised is how to ensure a broad range of voices are heard in deliberations and in the decision-making process. There are a variety of methods boards employ to achieve this. For example certain boards encourage directors to play devil’s advocate during meetings and others use a whiteboard approach to brainstorm ideas and “spitball” possible solutions prior to making a decision. This helps to separate the decision-making process from individual personalities and can help avoid groupthink.

Boards can improve their effectiveness by being willing to question long-standing practices. For instance, a large number of board members are reviewing their committee structures. They are asking themselves if they are serving their purpose and are the most effective way to run the meeting. They are looking at innovative ways to identify patterns and insights that may be hidden within the data and digital tools.