Читать книгу High Performance Boards - Didier Cossin - Страница 14

Over the past decade, we have witnessed dramatic and unprecedented developments in business, politics, and society. The main upshot of this has been the growing realisation that governance is the determining factor behind the success and failure of organisations. And with fresh evidence of abdication of duty in the corporate and policy-making spheres emerging on a weekly basis, there are growing demands for better governance in different countries, and for all types of organisations – businesses, governments, NGOs, and many others.

When we refer to governance, we mean the quality of decision-making and implementation at the top of organisations – and the processes to ensure these. Increasingly, boards are seen as having a key responsibility and role as the ‘owner’ of governance in an organisation. It is their competence, structures, and integrity, and their interactions with CEOs and management teams, that shape the governance DNA of organisations.

Until a few years ago, governance and boards were considered to be well understood, and operating along standard and predictable lines. As a result, the subject attracted relatively little attention from researchers. But the situation changed significantly as more stories of corporate malfeasance appeared in mainstream media, industry publications, and academic journals, inevitably accompanied by the question ‘Where was the board?’

Indeed, events during the past decade have made it clear that boards can fail in various ways. They have failed to manage risks, failed to contribute proactively to firm strategy, failed to identify the ‘right’ team, and, in some cases, failed to deal with integrity issues and possibly outright fraud. We will discuss board failures and challenges in more detail in Part II.

Partly as a consequence of these much-publicised and damaging failures, today's boards are eager to improve their performance and to continually fine-tune their effectiveness. They have become more cognisant than ever of their role in supporting their organisations' long-term success by aiming for world-class governance.

So, if business as usual is not an option for boards, what are the main dimensions to target when trying to make a board function better? How do we distil the key factors that contribute to board effectiveness?

In our work over the years inspiring the boards of organisations around the world toward greater success, my team and I have identified four discrete pillars of board effectiveness (see Figure 1.1). These are people quality, focus, and dedication; information architecture; structures and processes; and group dynamics and board culture. We will explore each of these pillars in detail in Chapters 4 to 7.

Figure 1.1 Governance Excellence Rests on Four Pillars

This simple framework for assessing a board's effectiveness has a deep-rooted underlying rationale, and its practical application has helped to transform boards for the better in many different contexts. These include large publicly traded companies, family owned businesses, non-profit organisations, governments, and other bodies, across all geographies, and in both developed and developing contexts.

The four-pillar methodology, focusing on systematic and continuous improvement along each dimension, has proven to be a strong asset for all types of organisation.