Thursday, August 3, 2017
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
Relational creativity in business is most commonly used for persuading customers to buy and investors to invest; it is different from the influence dimension. Professionals skilled in influence convince others on a person-to-person basis, whereas people talented at relational creativity use images and words to arouse emotions and create relationships with groups. This dimension is not a measure of creativity in general—only in the interpersonal realm. Someone who’s creative in an analytical area of business work (such as designing new investment instruments) can still have low interest in relational creativity; similarly, an artist (such as a composer or a painter) can lack skill in this domain. With that expressed Bret Carpenter will establish the board of directors for Nautic Sceptor.
The performance boards, like the performance teams, are competent, coordinated, collegial, and focused on an unambiguous goal. Such entities do not simply evolve; they must be constructed to an exacting blueprint. Bret Carpenter is responsible for “board building.” The challenge of board building is huge; most organization do not know where to begin. To help them, we’ve developed an agenda and a set of tools that boards can use to define and achieve their objectives. Board building is an ongoing activity, a process of continuous improvement, which means boards must keep coming back to the same questions about purpose, resources, and effectiveness. The best mechanisms for doing that are annual self-assessments. According to our survey, conducting and acting on such assessments are among the top activities most likely to improve board performance overall.
Like most quests for change, board building begins with a vision. Specifically, boards must decide how engaged they want to be in influencing management’s decisions and the organizational direction. With this step, they move beyond the letter of reform and begin to focus on its spirit. At the start of any board-building program, the directors and the CEO should agree among themselves which of the following models best fits the organization.
The Passive Board. This is the traditional model. The board’s activity and participation are minimal and at the CEO’s discretion. The board has limited accountability. Its main job is ratifying management’s decisions.
The Certifying Board. This model emphasizes credibility to shareholders and the importance of outside directors. The board certifies that the business is managed properly and that the CEO meets the board’s requirements. It also oversees an orderly succession process.
The Engaged Board. In this model, the board serves as the CEO’s partner. It provides insight, advice, and support on key decisions. It recognizes its responsibility for overseeing CEO and company performance. The board conducts substantive discussions of key issues and actively defines its role and boundaries.
The Intervening Board. This model is common in a crisis. The board becomes deeply involved in making key decisions about the company and holds frequent, intense meetings.
The Operating Board. This is the deepest level of ongoing board involvement. The board makes key decisions that management then implement. This model is common in early-stage start-ups whose top executives may have specialized expertise but lack broad management experience. Still, selecting a level of engagement provides the philosophical framework for everything that follows. Simply having that conversation is a significant first step toward improved board performance. The board may find that it disagrees sharply with the executive team about its role; or that individual directors harbor divergent views, making it difficult to act in concert. Having characterized itself to itself and to management, the board can evaluate each subsequent decision for fidelity to the model.
The Right Work. Establishing an overarching level of engagement helps board directors set expectations and ground rules for their roles relative to senior managers’ roles. But an engagement philosophy—like most expressions of general principle—does not apply equally to all spheres of activity. Boards, after all, potentially participate in dozens of distinct areas.
Bret Carpenter has mapped his personality, attitudes, values, strengths, and weaknesses. They ranged from extroverted to nearly reclusive, from easygoing to controlling, from generous to cost-conscious.
“What needs to be done?” “What is right for the endeavor?” He has developed action plans. He takes responsibility for decisions, for communicating. He is focused on opportunities rather than problems. He ran productive meetings. He thinks and says “we” rather than “I.”
The first two practices gave him knowledge he needed. The next four helped him convert this knowledge into effective action. The last two ensured that the whole organization felt responsible and accountable.
The performance boards, like the performance teams, are competent, coordinated, collegial, and focused on an unambiguous goal. Such entities do not simply evolve; they must be constructed to an exacting blueprint. Bret Carpenter is responsible for “board building.” The challenge of board building is huge; most organization do not know where to begin. To help them, we’ve developed an agenda and a set of tools that boards can use to define and achieve their objectives. Board building is an ongoing activity, a process of continuous improvement, which means boards must keep coming back to the same questions about purpose, resources, and effectiveness. The best mechanisms for doing that are annual self-assessments. According to our survey, conducting and acting on such assessments are among the top activities most likely to improve board performance overall.
Like most quests for change, board building begins with a vision. Specifically, boards must decide how engaged they want to be in influencing management’s decisions and the organizational direction. With this step, they move beyond the letter of reform and begin to focus on its spirit. At the start of any board-building program, the directors and the CEO should agree among themselves which of the following models best fits the organization.
The Passive Board. This is the traditional model. The board’s activity and participation are minimal and at the CEO’s discretion. The board has limited accountability. Its main job is ratifying management’s decisions.
The Certifying Board. This model emphasizes credibility to shareholders and the importance of outside directors. The board certifies that the business is managed properly and that the CEO meets the board’s requirements. It also oversees an orderly succession process.
The Engaged Board. In this model, the board serves as the CEO’s partner. It provides insight, advice, and support on key decisions. It recognizes its responsibility for overseeing CEO and company performance. The board conducts substantive discussions of key issues and actively defines its role and boundaries.
The Intervening Board. This model is common in a crisis. The board becomes deeply involved in making key decisions about the company and holds frequent, intense meetings.
The Operating Board. This is the deepest level of ongoing board involvement. The board makes key decisions that management then implement. This model is common in early-stage start-ups whose top executives may have specialized expertise but lack broad management experience. Still, selecting a level of engagement provides the philosophical framework for everything that follows. Simply having that conversation is a significant first step toward improved board performance. The board may find that it disagrees sharply with the executive team about its role; or that individual directors harbor divergent views, making it difficult to act in concert. Having characterized itself to itself and to management, the board can evaluate each subsequent decision for fidelity to the model.
The Right Work. Establishing an overarching level of engagement helps board directors set expectations and ground rules for their roles relative to senior managers’ roles. But an engagement philosophy—like most expressions of general principle—does not apply equally to all spheres of activity. Boards, after all, potentially participate in dozens of distinct areas.
Bret Carpenter has mapped his personality, attitudes, values, strengths, and weaknesses. They ranged from extroverted to nearly reclusive, from easygoing to controlling, from generous to cost-conscious.
“What needs to be done?” “What is right for the endeavor?” He has developed action plans. He takes responsibility for decisions, for communicating. He is focused on opportunities rather than problems. He ran productive meetings. He thinks and says “we” rather than “I.”
The first two practices gave him knowledge he needed. The next four helped him convert this knowledge into effective action. The last two ensured that the whole organization felt responsible and accountable.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Crossroads
In today's economy, value is largely the product of knowledge and information. Companies cannot generate profits without the ideas, skills, and leadership capabilities of knowledge workers. It's these factors--not technologies, not factories, and certainly not capital--that give the most successful companies their unique advantages. As knowledge workers come to realize this, and see that the demand for their talent outstrips the supply, they are steadily wresting more and more of the profits from shareholders. This time the battle is between the sources of capital and the producers of value, and how it will end is far from clear. With this new battle, we're also witnessing a fundamental change in the political alignment of capital. The Left is now siding with "the common shareholder" against the well-compensated top tier of the labor pool. Shareholders seeing an unprecedented proportion of the return on their investments siphoned off to employees may well ask, Is there no end to it? The growing tensions between shareholders and managers cannot be ignored, and capitalism is at a crossroads--again.
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