Board Room
Showing posts with label Board Room. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Board Room. Show all posts

An Influential Corporate Board

Highly influential corporate boards are heterogeneous, inquisitive, intelligent, effective, innovative and influential. 

People tend to make leadership very complex, but in its most simple form, leadership is an influence. With rapid changes and exponential growth of information, the command control style of management is gradually losing its steam. Digital leadership needs to be highly intelligent and influential, to lead through influence, but brute force. The corporate board as one of the top leadership pillars must influence and exemplify progressive leadership and help to shape an ultra-modern digital organization effortlessly.

Influential Intelligence: A mindset could be called influential intelligence if it can discover the patterns of inter-relationship among different disciplines, understand the mindsets of all members of the group. The insightful board leaders has the ability to influence peers or management team as they undertake a broad range of crucial decisions involving issues such as strategy, performance, branding, technological vision, finance, talent management, etc. They do not dominate discussions, instead, they encourage open critical debates, encourage fresh perspectives, and appreciate the collective insight from peer board directors as well as various stakeholders. To "influence" means to be able to shape other people's views or opinions towards one's own views or perspectives. With influential intelligence, the contemporary corporate board can inspire, innovate, improve, interact, interpret, exemplify, encourage, and orchestrate change. The corporate board leaders with influential intelligence have adaptability, consistency, profundity, and empathy to steer the business in the right directions under business dynamic and lead the business forward smoothly.

Expertise influence: Top board leaders need to have broader business acumen, deep expertise, transdisciplinary knowledge, cross-functional experience, and leadership skills. As a senior leadership role, corporate board directors should be the specialized generalists with “T” shaped expertise, and they are able to embrace the seemingly paradoxical point of views in order to gain a deep understanding of varying strategic topics holistically. Most of the board directors are top seasoned executives with decades of experience. Collectively, the digital board with a blend of expertise and capabilities can foster a culture of innovation and improve boardroom decision effectiveness and leadership maturity. To reach the state of knowledge proficiency and spread expertise influence, it is also important to identify and close the gap between knowledge and insight in the boardroom. Board directors are not just the follower to chase the tidal waves blindly, but able to capture the invaluable business insight to make sound judgments and effective decisions in a consistent way.

World class leadership influence: The ultimate criterion of "high-influential leadership," is the ability to create more leaders, to spread leadership, or more precisely, to groom more authentic leaders with the ability to think differently, independently, and innovatively. To amplify leadership influence, digital leaders including corporate board directors need to be constantly visible by sharing vision and enabling others to share it. Their leadership influence is made based on the leadership substances such as vision and purpose with effective digital leadership styles such as participation, coaching or delegation. The corporate board’s global leadership influence is based on their world-class leadership competencies such as self-regulation, social judgment skills, empathy, motivation to work in a global environment, cultural cognition, acceptance of complexity and its contradictions, the tolerance of ambiguity, flexibility, and learning agility. Their leadership influence must be built on the foundation of the moral competencies such as wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance.

Highly influential corporate boards are heterogeneous, inquisitive, intelligent, effective, innovative and influential. Open leadership, humble attitude, adaptability, creativity, sound judgment, inclusiveness, and fact-driven communication, are digital leadership traits to make profound leadership influence. Highly influential leaders understand themselves and have a story to tell, they develop an authentic leadership brand, and encourage others to do the same.
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Three Perspectives to Improve Corporate Board Adaptability

Board of Directors with digital acumen can both drive and adapt to changes effortlessly.

Digital means rapid change, the unprecedented level of uncertainty and ambiguity, the expanded spectrum of innovation, and the theme of people centricity. All of these changes bring significant opportunities and responsibilities for the new breed of digital BoDs to lead differently. The digital corporate board leadership today needs to be future-oriented, highly adaptive, steer the organization towards the digital journey with a clear vision, a highly effective board agenda and a set of best and next practices.

Addressing emerging issues and co-designing digital landscape: The modern corporations are living systems. In systems theory, a system is conceived as a process whereby larger entities, patterns, and regularities arise through interactions among smaller or simpler entities that themselves do not exhibit such properties. From a broader systems perspective, synergy is the business term for a desirable emergent property. It’s about understanding of relationships, ecosystems, market dynamics, and the connections between business units, To improve business agility and maturity, the corporate board and top management team need to focus on the emergent organizational system properties and enable the desirable emergent property being built via certain business activities or process tuning to create business synergy.

Systems Thinking helps digital leaders such as board directors discover the interconnectivity and interdependence of the digital business ecosystem, and ensure that the digital business as an organic system growing and evolving with its environment in harmony. To gain the “zoom out” business views, board directors as senior business leaders are like the telescope, they are good at seeing the big picture, determine what the future needs to look like, understand the interconnectivity, synthesize information to capture the full cycle of seasonal changes and then, co-design digital landscape, take a strategic approach to make the vision rolling into reality.

Moving the needle in diversity and shaping an inclusive culture: Contemporary organizations are diversified with a multigenerational and multicultural stakeholders. To keep business dynamic and creative, the composition of the corporate board should reflect the diverse nature of its shareholders. The corporate board composition needs to embrace cognitive difference, functional difference, and other experience/capability difference. The corporate board is responsible for ensuring an appropriate mix of thought processes, capabilities, skills, knowledge, and experience are present or available for it to fulfill its fiduciary functions and improve governance effectiveness.

We are idea-rich and vision clear through inclusiveness. Businesses are stronger through diversity, it allows them to explore options that one individual or a homogeneous group might not have uncovered. In order to lead today’s hyper-connected digital organization with the hyper-diverse workforce, the corporate board composition should be synchronized with the digital perspective of the business. From top down, inclusiveness needs to be well embedded in the business culture in shaping a truly global organization.


Leading change and improving creative agility: Change is the new normal with increasing speed. It is important to bring the change wave to the boardroom as well. The  board  of directors as a top leadership team should contemplate the big "WHY" and know the dynamic of change and adapt to the ever-evolving business circumstances.

Board of Directors with digital acumen can both drive and adapt to changes effortlessly, setting the top leadership tone to rejuvenate the culture of creativity and run a highly innovative digital organization. Change leadership at the board level is important because change management is an interdependent ecosystem that includes many business factors such as the company goals, policies, internal control requirements, customer experience improvements/customer satisfaction, etc.

A change agent board has the advantage of pulling enough resources and pushing the business model of technology, trustworthiness, prepare and launch change, innovation, and master with digital fluency to make profound leadership influence. Directors of the board with the change mind are more skillful to ask ‘right’ questions for governing changes so that the directors would be able to quickly assess any numbers and facts they are given, against applicable benchmarks and detect relevant hints for further questioning or confirmation.

Due to the complexity, uncertainty, ambiguity, and volatility of the digital era, the directorship in any organization must envision the future boldly, influence changes proactively, have the agility to adapt to the dynamic digital new normal, reinforce digital principles and practices, and lead the organization towards its future confidently.
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The Corporate Board’s Mentorship Competency

Digital leaders including board directors are more as a great mentor than an entitled commander, in order to harness leadership through pulling, not pushing. 

Coaching or mentoring is going to be increasingly important now because the "command & control" style of management is gradually losing its steam in the digital era of abundant knowledge and hyperconnected business normality. The mentor style board directors play a critical role in developing next-generation leaders and help the current leadership stay attuned to the realities of their industry and business ecosystem.


Mentorship is about guiding, advising, interpreting, and influencing: This is radically different from the command-and-control style of management. Great leadership includes mentoring capability, and excellent mentorship is both art and science. To be the most effective leader, board directors need to present a clear vision, proficient knowledge and communication skills, and practice open leadership style. The digital leader today is more as a great mentor than an entitled commander. Not everyone (even many top executives) makes a good mentor. There are many skills & abilities that a good business mentor needs - key amongst them are the ability to listen & observe; the ability to ask probing open questions; a degree of imagination to put oneself in the mentee's shoes to understand his/her perspective; and an openness in discussion. From the boardroom to the front desk, mentoring has always been a very integral part of an organization’s success.

Great leaders should be ideal mentors, by mentoring, you are showing that you value others: One of the most important traits for any senior leaders including board directors is self-awareness which is about understanding your impact on others, the surroundings, and how to leverage your strengths and build a high-performance team with complementary skills and experience. Even many board directors are top seasoned business leaders with decades of enriched experiences.Still, it doesn't mean they always have all the answers due to the overloading information and shortened knowledge life cycle, The mentoring style leaders are not about providing all the answers, but about facilitating continuous dialogues and help others explore their own natural skill sets, talents, and strong sides, take into account their own objectives in line with working needs. By mentoring you are showing that you value others, and in order to add value to others, you need to hold people in high regard, not only for who they are but for the potential that lies inside of them. The titles and qualifications, if well managed, are needed in every society to improve leadership maturity.

Leadership is methodical, but there is some magic in there: Every effective leader needs to fill a certain gap or multiple gaps in order to lead to the future. The expert power has the foundation of in-depth knowledge, profound insight, and abstract wisdom to connect the minds and win the hearts. Effective leadership is methodical, it takes hard work and endurance, the substance of leadership never changes, A well established and functioning mentoring process is invaluable for an organization to develop its next-generation leaders and for the current leadership to stay attuned to the realities of their ecosystem. Learning, coaching, and practicing leadership are methodical processes that are improved by constant learning and practice. It has to be institutionalized and lived by the top of the organization to be successful.

Digital leaders including board directors are more as a great mentor than an entitled commander, in order to harness leadership through pulling, not pushing. Beside their vision and leadership substance, as well as a unique set of leadership competency; they will also need to adjust their leadership styles accordingly in order to catalyze change and drive digital transformation effortlessly.
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The Monthly “Digitizing Boardroom” Book Tuning: The Corporate Board’s Digital Fit Sep. 2019

The corporate board plays a significant role in overseeing business strategy, setting effective principles and policies, making sound judgments and assurance of corporate actions within a framework of practical knowledge. 

Modern corporate boards play significant roles in guiding businesses in the right direction and achieve expected business results. Due to the “VUCA” characteristics -Complexity, Uncertainty, Ambiguity, and Velocity of the Digital Era, the directorship in any organization must have the agility to adapt to changes and build abilities to advise, inspire and motivate a group of people toward accomplishing shared visions and goals. Here are the multiple perspectives of shaping a strategic boardroom.



                 The Corporate Board’s Digital Fit 




The Corporate Board Change Fit Change is the only constant, and the speed of change is increasing rapidly. The corporate board directors should become interactive change agents that represent the organization, stockholders, and senior management, make significant influences on setting digital tones and shaping the digital mindset of the organization, both walk the talk and talk the walk and set the digital tone for others to follow.

A ‘Fitting’ Board Organizations today have to live up with the business dynamic which is uncertain, ambiguous, complex and flux, Board as high-level governance body plays a crucial role in business advising & monitoring, as well as setting key tones in organizational culture style and leadership quintessential. What does it mean to build a fitting Board, and who is the best fitting BoD, a specialist or a generalist?

The BoD’s Knowledge Fit The corporate board plays a significant role in overseeing business strategy, setting effective principles and policies, making sound judgments and assurance of corporate actions within a framework of practical knowledge. Not only do today’s BoDs need to have sufficient knowledge to understand the business ecosystem, but they also should have the collective insight to present today and foresee the future.

The Corporate Board "Performance Fit" Performances are not just numbers with metrics, they are numbers in context, results related to business goals. Business performance can be affected by numerous factors of which governance is one of them. The corporate board as one of the most crucial governance bodies in the modern enterprise plays an important role in setting digital principles for improving performance management effectiveness and monitoring business performance smoothly.

The Best-in-Class Digital Board Corporate board as the top leadership team plays a significant role in business advising, leadership exemplarity, policy setting, and governance practices. How to build a best-in-class digital board? Is there any way for shareholders and key stakeholders to evaluate board leadership effectiveness?

The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 3 million page views with 6000+ blog posting in 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. The content richness is not for its own sake, but to convey the vision and share the wisdom. Blogging is not about writing, but about thinking; it’s not just about WHAT to say, but about WHY to say, and HOW to say it. It reflects the color and shade of your thought patterns, and it indicates the peaks and curves of your thinking waves. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify your voice, deepen your digital footprints, and match your way for human progression.
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What’s Inside the BoD’s Tool Box

The board directors who are equipped with a set of powerful tools have the advantage of communicating effectively and deciding wisely.

Due to the “VUCA” characteristics -complexity, uncertainty, ambiguity and velocity of the digital era, the directorship in any organization becomes more critical and challenging. The purpose of the governing body, or board of directors, is to direct the organization in the right direction, practice governance discipline, and monitor its performance. Corporate governance is to make sure that management is doing its job properly. The corporate board needs to shift from reactive to active and proactive mode for adapting to the dynamic business environment with continuous disruptions. To improve the directorship effectiveness, what’re supposed to be inside the board of directors’ toolbox to enforce its governance discipline?

SWOT Analysis: We live in an era full of uncertainty, velocity, rapid changes and exponential growth of information, the result is a higher risk of conflict and inertia, etc. Decision makers including corporate board directors need effective tools to help them navigate between the rocks of analysis-paralysis, foresight-hindsight, and blind guesswork. the business strengths and weaknesses need an evaluation in order to have a decision-making ground. SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) Analysis is a good tool which provides a starting point to scrutinize strategy and helps to take a wide look around at what's going on outside the organization and how it might affect the organization (an environmental scan), and identify opportunities and threats. It also helps to take a hard look at what's going on inside the organization, including its strengths and weaknesses. By adding the Trends, you're asking the organization to look at what's happening now and what's coming down the pike so that they can be proactive in preparing for it. How effective the tool is depends on the SWOT users, do they ask the right questions, and answer them via multidimensional lenses, and understand them in context by zooming into the future more clearly.

Business Architecture: Business Architecture is more than a "hint of the business process," but an effective communication tool at the higher level. The business architecture could become a great executive communication tool, particularly when the architecture discussion is kept at a higher level and keep all executives at the same page by walking through the discussion about strategy planning, governance, transformation, etc. The board of directors with an architect’s mindset can translate the abstract concept back into the real world example. Thus, it also has the ‘visual’ ability to “see” an idea and express it in visual terms via interactive way. The real value of business architecture is how to keep the priorities in balance and make the sound judgment without losing the big picture. The board of directors who can speak architectural dialect is able to facilitate the digital dialogues between organizational decision makers and thereby assist the organization in continuously designing and redesigning itself in pursuit of new and more viable strategies, enhancing cross-functional business coordination, developing knowledge and expertise, and enforcing business responsibility.

Balanced scorecard: The well designed balanced scorecard with well-selected metrics can harness information-based communication at the board level. A balanced scorecard is very useful to provide a “balanced” view of tradeoff variables for facilitating discussions and ensure decision makers understanding the various trade-offs and making the strategic balance, business dependencies, and constraints between components, individuals, and overall risk exposure. A balanced scorecard helps the board capture the holistic picture, make sure that the strategy execution is on track. It enables feedback & learning, as well as adjusting the strategy accordingly. They can become more confident and accurately judge the coming curves and obstacles on the path, and get into actions in a creative, positive and proactive way, to lead the digital transformation journey smoothly.

At today's business dynamic with digitalization and globalization trend, the top leadership team such as board directors who are equipped with a set of powerful tools have the advantage of communicating effectively, deciding wisely, and pulling enough resources and pushing the business to reach the next level of digital maturity.
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The Corporate Board Change Fit

Leadership or directorship is about setting directions and inspiring changes.

Change is the only constant, and the speed of change is increasing rapidly. The corporate board directors should become interactive change agents that represent the organization, stockholders, and senior management, make significant influences on setting digital tones and shaping the digital mindset of the organization, both walk the talk and talk the walk and set the digital tone for others to follow.


Change is the “DNA” of modern leadership: Change starts at the board level. We live in a world where change is the norm and if we don't embrace it, accept it, roll with it or make it happen, we're not going to be successful. While there are many components of leadership, one of the most important ones is the ability to adapt, model and influence change. It is a basic human ability to inspire self and others to look beyond limitations and make continuous improvement. This is particularly important at the board level because board directors help to oversee the business agenda for change and digital transformation, they also must help to push this agenda, pull all important business resources to achieve it. The contemporary corporate board can inspire, innovate, improve, interact, interpret, influence, exemplify, encourage and orchestrate change, as change is often uncomfortable, but a necessary part of reaching the future and sustain the success. 

Change capability is a strategic skill on leadership qualities: While there are many components of leadership, one of the most important ones is the ability to adapt, model and influence change. The leadership team such as corporate board must push the change agenda, and pull the resources to achieve it. We live in a world where change is the norm and if we don't embrace it, accept it, roll with it or make it happen, we're not going to be successful. It also makes it possible for everyone to be on the same page speaking the same language and fosters an atmosphere of accountability. Change leadership concerns the driving forces, visions, and processes that fuel large-scale transformation. Leadership is all about change management and also the ability to take initiative (change leadership). So accepting and embracing change has put leaders more at ease because of its consistency. It's also given digital leaders such as BoDs confidence because you know you are able to positively adapt to any given situation.


The boards of Directors sets policies and principles for changes and digital transformation: Change is the new normal, and the speed of change is increasing, Without well-preparation, major changes in an organization’s ecosystem could have unforeseen consequences that negatively impact the company’s productivity and performance. More than 70% of Change Management effort fails to achieve the expected result. Thus, it is important to bring the CHANGE wave to the boardroom as well. Digital leaders including board directors should contemplate the big "WHY" and know the dynamic of change and adapt to the ever-evolving business circumstances. Change leadership at the board level is important because change management is an interdependent ecosystem that includes many business factors such as the company goals, policies, internal control requirements, customer experience improvements/customer satisfaction, etc, which should be synchronized without compromising the need for any item.

Leadership or directorship is about setting directions and inspiring changes. Change Management has a very wide scope and is a relatively new area of expertise, it needs to focus on coordination and facilitation, follow the right set of principles and take the best or next digital practices.
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The Monthly “Digital Boardroom” Book Tuning: Constructive Criticism in Boardroom Aug. 2019

Criticism shows portrayal of ideas, concerns, directions, and attitudes.

Modern corporate boards play significant roles in guiding businesses in the right direction and achieve expected business results. Due to the “VUCA” characteristics -Complexity, Uncertainty, Ambiguity, and Velocity of the Digital Era, the directorship in any organization must have the agility to adapt to changes and build abilities to advise, inspire and motivate a group of people toward accomplishing shared visions and goals. Here are the multiple perspectives of shaping a strategic boardroom.


                 Constructive Criticism in Boardroom 



Constructive Criticism in the Boardroom The corporate board plays a crucial role in overseeing business strategy and driving business transformation. Criticism shows portrayal of ideas, concerns, directions, and attitudes. Asking good questions to management or the board members themselves is not the “wasting time” activity, it can help to clarify the vision and bring new insight about how to steer the company in the right direction.

Communication Competency of BoDs Communication is the key to improve leadership effectiveness and improve business fluidity. Either at the boardroom or the different layers of the business hierarchy, effective communication is like the thread to connect all important business gems, for building the trustful relationship, enforcing collaboration, and improving digital readiness and manageability.

A “Skeptical Board” to Advocate Innovation The Corporate Board plays a critical role in business strategy oversight, monitoring execution, advising digital transformation, and setting tones for talent management. The boards are also transforming from compliance-driven to performance oriented to get digital ready. In practice, the board's role is to pull management out of the trees to see the forest; to understand the business landscape and how it will address it; to continue questioning on important issues where the management's answers do not make sense, and to show the constructive skepticism for brainstorming changes and advocating innovation.

How to Close the Feedback Gaps Nobody is perfect, we should always self-aware, strengthen our strengths and improve our weaknesses. We need always to welcome the constructive feedback which helps improve our professional growth and personal maturity. However, how can you discern which feedback is constructive, and how can you bridge the feedback gaps in order to shape the growth mindset and achieve professional advancement effortlessly?

How to Bridge Insight Gaps in the Boardroom Leadership is about envisioning and leading the business towards its future. Top leadership roles such as board directors are supposed to be the guiding force in the enterprise. In practice, the digital era is volatile, complex, uncertain and ambiguous. Many say that the multitude of gaps (thinking, knowledge, innovation, strategy execution, etc.) are enlarged because different industries, organizations, functions, and individuals evolve with varying speed. To lift up the board leadership maturity, minding the insight gap is challenging, but a critical step for improving leadership effectiveness. Leadership is an influence, influence comes from progressive mindsets, profound insight, and step-wise actions. Insight is an understanding of cause and effect based on the identification of relationships and behaviors within a model, context, or scenario.

The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 3 million page views with 5900+ blog posting in 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. The content richness is not for its own sake, but to convey the vision and share the wisdom. Blogging is not about writing, but about thinking; it’s not just about WHAT to say, but about WHY to say, and HOW to say it. It reflects the color and shade of your thought patterns, and it indicates the peaks and curves of your thinking waves. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify your voice, deepen your digital footprints, and match your way for human progression.
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The Board as IT Maturity Evaluator

The corporate board’s IT inquiries help the business understand the critical role of IT in achieving business performance and maximizing business potential.


Information is the lifeblood of the business and technology is the disruptive force behind the digital transformation. Nowadays, information technology can either lift or fail business even overnight. Therefore, an IT savvy board should change the perspective to understand the power of information technology and make an objective assessment of IT maturity of their organization so that companies can leverage IT to improve the top line business growth and build a long-term business advantage.

Help to set guiding principles for running digital IT organization: The corporate board oversees the business strategy and sets guiding principles for practicing business management disciplines. Guiding principles let the organization know what to expect when dealing with IT. It serves as a yardstick by which to manage and measure IT internally and externally, and it can spur some great discussions with fellow C-suites to improve business maturity. To oversee the strategy, you will need a cascade of statements that link the overall vision/philosophy of the organization, value statements, Mission Statements, Strategy, Objectives, and Programs (Tactics). There needs to be a pragmatic way of applying whatever principles to the problem in a consistent manner. Otherwise, it is a waste of effort to even state them. Today IT is permeating into every corner of the business, IT management is no longer just the business of IT department, but a holistic management discipline to ensure the right people getting the right information to make the right decisions for solving the right problems at the right time. The corporate board’s IT oversight is important because it is not easy for a set of defined principles that can be applied holistically - their content contains natural conflict, and without a method of prioritizing and implementing them consistently, they become a source of contention.

Assess the overall IT performance: The fundamental accountability issue for the corporate board is to ensure the organization acts in accordance with the relevant regulations. Often, companies overwhelmed with too many business initiatives is a common scenario. The root cause of the problem is the lack of connection between strategy and implementation. There are a couple of contributing factors to project overwhelming and lack of priority, such as leadership ineffectiveness, resource under-estimation, or the “whirlwind” of the day to day operations, etc. The corporate board’s strategy oversight and performance monitoring help the business management including IT set the right priority, lead the business to a realization that the real challenge and the real opportunity in improving the corporate governance of IT are in reworking the management systems so that they are integral aspects of the corporate management systems for planning, building, and running the business to improve its effectiveness, performance, and maturity.

Evaluate the maturity of the IT organization: Is IT an enabler or an obstacle to getting things done in organizations? One of the biggest obstacles to achieving digital fluency is the gap between business and IT. IT organization is supposed to be one of the most significant building blocks of the business competency, but it’s perceived as the roadblock to getting things done. Too often, IT is involved too late in the decision-making process. This results in a dynamic where the business develops enthusiastically nice and shiny plans and goals, but IT then has to explain why this cannot be developed and fit into the plan at a reasonable investment. Thus, an IT-friendly board should oversee the business strategy with IT strategy as an integral component, invite IT leaders to the big table for providing input and sharing a technological vision. If the IT focus is on operations and controlling only, it is no wonder non-IT executives consider IT as an obstacle. IT leaders must know how to promote their organization by "selling the right things right," to have a seat at the big table and share the vision the radical digital transformation IT can catalyze. The corporate board monitors the business performance and sets the cultural tone to build a high performance organization. Collaboration, transparency, respect, and clear leadership are the keys to break down silos, and every department in the company needs to work together to be successful.

The corporate board’s IT assessment and oversight help the business management understand the critical role of IT in achieving high performance and maximizing business potential. The top leadership needs to sort through the critical issues, develop rationalizations and achieve mutually acceptable solutions that are then communicated up, down and across the enterprise to integrate IT and business and make a seamless digital transformation.
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The BoD’s Problem-Solving Competency

Problem-solving is a mindset with curiosity, self-inclusiveness, creativity, and progression, which directly impacts the intellectual sophistication of problem-solving capability.

Fundamentally, every job is to deal with problems big or small both from the long-term perspective or on a daily basis. We all develop reputations - for being problem creators, problem definers or problem solvers. Problem-solving is about seeing a problem and actually finding a solution to that problem, not just the band-aid approach to fixing the symptom. It’s critical to build problem-solving competency at the board level and improve senior leadership effectiveness and maturity.






The board’s insightful view to identifying the problem: Boards oversee business strategy and fundamentally, the strategy is about diagnosing business problems, making choices, and taking actions to achieve well-defined goals. Thus, board directors should have sharp eyes to identify problems and unique insight to pinpoint the root causes. Because problem-solving is about seeing a problem and actually finding a solution to that problem, not just the band-aid approach to fixing the symptom. The Board of Directors as “Problem-Definer” should understand what is exactly wrong, out of balance, stagnation, etc., the exact description of the problem, and how to frame the right problem and solve it smoothly. Otherwise, fixing the wrong cause of a problem is creating more gaps and lead to even more serious problems later on. Asking good and pertinent questions are critical for governing changes so the directors would have to be able to quickly assess top critical business issues and make sound decisions consistently. To be a good problem-definer, BoDs need to gain deep insight into how things work just by analyzing the aggregates, not necessary to dive into the trivial details. Board Directors need to understand the difference between being a director and the operator of the business. To avoid micromanagement, boards are more as problem-definer than the direct problem-solving because they often delegate the well-defined problems to management for solving them on time or implementing solutions to tailor varying circumstances effectively.

Identify qualified problem solvers:Identify the problem - what is exactly wrong, out of balance, unjust, etc., the exact description of the problem. When the problem is well-defined, it is also important to spot the right person (people) with the right mindset and skills to solve it. One of the most important management disciplines today is to put the right people with the right capabilities in the right position to solve the right problem timely. Corporate boards can set the right tones for innovating talent management and improve the overall problem-solving competency of the business. High IQ and EQ are both important for effective problem-solving. Problem-solving is a mindset with curiosity, self-inclusiveness, creativity, and progression, which directly impacts the intellectual sophistication of problem-solving capability. There is as much creative thinking, critical thinking, strategic thinking and system thinking that go into problem identification as well as solution discovery. People who can solve problems in a new way are innovators. Emotional intelligence is also critical for problem-solving because it is the ability to harness positive emotions and apply them to tasks like thinking and problems solving, dispassionately analyze the situation objectively in order to make the sound judgment. From the boardroom to coffee room, be cautious of those "problem-creating" mindsets, such as silo thinking, polar thinking (we are right, they are wrong); non-critical thinking (reflexive, not reflective), stereotypical thinking (based on outdated perception), small thinking (locally right, globally wrong) or static thinking (we always do things this way), have a difficult time to solve tough problems, and continue to argue “it’s impossible.” Therefore, identify qualified problem-solvers are imperative because misfit minds and skills will cause more problems and decelerate the speed of business changes.


Evaluate outcomes: The evaluation of problem-solving is to ensure the real problems have been fixed and cause the least side effects as possible. It is important to keep track of the outcome of strategic problem-solving at the board level by asking the management tough questions: Has the problem been fixed permanently? Does the solution cause any side effects, or cause more serious issues later on? Who are the real problem-solvers? Work with management to find the factors involved in the final "incorrect" outcome. See if they can measure or weigh each factor's contribution to the result, or the description of the unit of measure. Build a hypothetical equation that describes "incorrect" outcomes. Taking a systematic approach to measurement can avoid blind-spots in problem-solving management. The organization that didn't have a systematic approach to measurement and analysis at both the strategic level and operational level has a giant blind spot that is impairing their performance or problem-solving effectiveness. Having the appropriate performance indicators is very important. But acting on what those indicators are telling you is vital to sustaining and improving problem-solving capability at the business level.

A digital-ready board has the advantage of pulling enough resources and pushing the business model of technology, trustworthiness, working closely with the management by integrating multidisciplinary methodology to approach problems via multi-faceted way technically, scientifically and culturally.
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Communication Competency of BoDs

Communication clarity directly impacts on the business effectiveness and organizational maturity.

Communication is the key to improve leadership effectiveness and improve business fluidity. Either at the boardroom or the different layers of the business hierarchy, effective communication is like the thread to connect all important business gems, for building the trustful relationship, enforcing collaboration, and improving digital readiness and manageability.



Break down communication bottlenecks by paying attention to content, context, and style: Technically, communication can be broadly categorized into technology-based communication and communication based on direct human contact. There are interpersonal communication and intrapersonal communication. Communication effectiveness can be improved upon when the hard barriers are broken down and soft obstacles are overcome. There are hard communication barriers such as out of date processes, procedures, practices or soft ones like culture, politics or leadership style, etc. Miscommunication is also caused by perception gaps because people have a different knowledge base and cognitive understanding to articulate things. We live in the digital era with exponential growth of information. The updated and accurate information can make conversations more trustful and persuasive. Also, pay more attention to communication content (what's your message), communication context (what will indicate to a different audience) and communication styles. Don’t forget the wise quote from the Drucker: “The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said.” -Peter Drucker

Improve communication effectiveness by overcoming "Lost in Translation" syndrome: Communication is complicated because there are differences in goals and contexts, especially strategic communication at the board level. Contextual understanding is about knowing the business dynamic and perceiving the business insight in a cohesive way in order to enforce cross-functional communication. Misinterpretation enlarges communication gaps and causes decision-ineffectiveness. Misinterpretation is often caused by a lack of contextual understanding, pre-conceptual judgment, random assumptions, prejudices, misinformation, or simply lack of deeper understanding. Assumptions and prejudices are due to a lack of deeper understanding. When you intend to understand, interpret and judge something, you need to form a critical opinion of it based on facts, discerned data, common understanding, and clarified notions,


Leverage diverse viewpoints by listening, brainstorming, or questioning to improve communication effectiveness: Highly effective leaders and strategists are business “multi-linguists” who can overcome all sorts of communication obstacles, master different business dialects and convey the right message in the right format to tailor different audiences for harnessing communication effectiveness and enforcing business collaboration. Lack of trust is an often overlooked barrier to communication. It is important to foster an environment in which feedback and communication are based on reality and not simply what senior management wants to hear. Authentic and candid communication helps to harness trust and encourage collaborative problem-solving.

Communication clarity directly impacts on the business effectiveness and organizational maturity. Communications are the tools to solve problems, and languages are the tools to make communications. The great communicators can communicate objectively with strong logic, clarity, and understanding. The reality of messages is that they have to be "real." There is no magic communication formula, but always pay more attention to content, context, and style for interpreting things with clarity, communicating shared goals clearly and making smooth business progress.
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The BoD’s Knowledge Fit

The Board of Directors today needs to be knowledgeable, insightful, influential, strategic, and highly effective.

The corporate board plays a significant role in overseeing business strategy, setting effective principles and policies, making sound judgments and assurance of corporate actions within a framework of practical knowledge. Not only do today’s BoDs need to have sufficient knowledge to understand the business ecosystem, but they also should have the collective insight to present today and foresee the future.



Knowledge proficiency: As a senior leadership role, board directors should be the specialized generalists with “T” shaped expertise. Most of the board directors are top seasoned executives with years of experience. The T-shaped directors are in strong demand to bring the breadth of the business ecosystem or the across-industry perspective and the depth of the domain knowledge and expertise to the table. The vertical bar of the “T” represents depth in one field, the horizontal bar represents the ability to collaborate across other disciplines and to apply knowledge in areas of expertise. To reach the state of knowledge proficiency at the board level, it is important to identify and close the leadership gap between knowledge and insight, capture invaluable business insight to make sound judgments and effective decisions consistently. Forward-looking boards are looking for fresh knowledge and diverse experience for improving governance effectiveness. Collectively, the digital board with a blend of expertise and capabilities can foster a culture of innovation and improve boardroom digital readiness and leadership maturity.

Insight-driven: It is the paradigm shift from information scarcity in the industrial age to knowledge abundance in the digital era. At today’s digital dynamic, information is abundant and knowledge is only a click away. To quote Peter Drucker, knowledge is the most invaluable commodity. It couldn’t be truer in the digital era. On one hand, the fresh knowledge can be captured from the abundance of information; on the other hand, it doesn’t take long for that knowledge to become a commodity once the market is exposed to it. To reach the state of knowledge proficiency, it is also important to identify and close the gap between knowledge and insight, Boards directors shouldn’t be overwhelmed by the exponential growth of information and abundant knowledge, but be able to capture the invaluable business insight to make sound judgments and effective decisions.

Information savvy: The Board's role, in large part, is to make good decisions that enhance the value creation for the organization. Insightful boards not just crunch finance numbers but also get a new charter to focus on understanding more about KIDM - Knowledge-Information and Data Management. To gain business insight, the BoDs need to become information savvy and IT-friendly. The board directors may not be interested in data itself, but surely they would be interested in the "V" factor -VALUE it can bring to the table. "KIDM" improves measurably with analytics, as the speed, accuracy, and precision of the decision has a new level of importance and competitive value. So, an insightful board will leverage information and analytics to make strategic decisions effectively and steer the organization in the right direction.

The Board of Directors today needs to be knowledgeable, insightful, influential, strategic, and highly effective, and the board as a whole is able to create the cohesive vision, shape a holistic view, and transform from compliance-centric to performance-driven.
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