68. The Biggest Favour You Can Do for Your Board (probably)

SCRIPT: One of the downsides of being a powerful and influential corporate leader is that you usually feel pressure to walk the walk no matter how low your confidence might be. It’s hard enough to admit when you don’t know the answer to a big question, and even harder when you don’t know the answer to a super simple question. This is one of the reasons why it can be difficult to improve corporate governance: everyone in the room first needs to admit that they’re not perfect – and that they probably never have been. This is why I start a lot of my sessions, courses, and even this podcast with a discussion about what governance is in the first place. Not because I have the right answer and need to share it with everyone – even though I think my answer’s pretty good, to be honest – but because I know how relieving it can be to have someone else create an environment where I can learn and talk about simple, fundamental, and important things without having to admit that I don’t know them already. Especially if it’s things I feel like I should have known all along. I think one of the great favours you can do for your board and management is to try to create situations where your peers feel safe to have those conversations – without judgment, without too much vulnerability, without fanfare. It can start with a question, like “Hey, does anyone listen to OMG, what do you think of Matt’s definition of governance in Ep2?”