Board Talk
Description
An accessible guide to the business of being a board director, through the lens of 18 crucial conversations.
- How do you understand what is really going on in an organisation, so you can exercise the oversight that is required from you?
- How do you overcome the information asymmetry problem, where the executive directors know more about the operation than you do?
- How will you collaborate as a board to set the right strategic direction in a context that changes constantly?
- How will you see the organisation through the eyes of your advisors, your employees and your key stakeholders?
- How can you manage the risks you know about as well as the ones you don't?
Your best tool for all of this is conversation - about the right topics, with the right people, at the right time. This book shows you what these conversations need to cover and how to make them count. Whether you are a new director of a PLC, a long-standing Trustee of a charity, or a governor of an educational institution, this book will help you and your colleagues become the board your organisation needs.
Kathryn Bishop and Gillian Camm each have many decades operating at board level in listed and private companies, charities, government boards, professional services firms and educational establishments. They have blended this with their experience of selecting, developing, and teaching non-executives, and underpinned it with a carefully curated selection of the most relevant and usable board research together with their own research insights.
More details
Persons
Kathryn Bishop CBE has served on boards in England and Wales in the public and charity sectors, including at the UK Intellectual Property Office, the Border Agency and Welsh Government as well as in schools and at university level. As an Associate Fellow at the Said Business School at the University of Oxford, she works with boards of global organisations.
Gillian Camm has extensive experience on boards in the private and public sector, as a director, non-executive and chair. She has worked with investors, regulators and consumer groups and on reviewing and re-developing systems of governance, including the Camm Review of university governance in Wales and the GMC following the Shipman Inquiry.
Content
Preface: Why you need this book and how to use it
Introduction: The conversation 'kitbag'
Conversations... As a board member
1 ...About joining: Understanding the role of a board member
2 ...About the board :Exploring the role of this board
3 ...About chairing: Conversations that matter to all board members
4 ...With board members: Sense-checking conversations
To support and challenge
5 ...About the organization: Talking about purpose, mission, vision and values
6 ...About strategy: Turning central ideas into action
7 ...About the future: Talking about what's over the horizon
8 ...About holding to account: Creating a culture of accountability
9 ...About people and reward: Development, succession and remuneration
10 ...About effectiveness: Talking about board performance In working relationships
11 ...With the CEO: Coaching, confiding, challenging
12 ...With staff: Talking and listening to those who work here
13 ...With stakeholders: Developing a stakeholder mindset
14 ...With regulators: Understanding the relationship
15 ...With advisors: Finding the support the board needs
About key exposures
16 ...About ethics: A new boardroom focus
17 ...About risk: Preventing board blindness
18 ...About a crisis: When things go wrong
Final words
Conversations with yourself: Reflecting as a professional practice
List of figures
List of tables
Appendix: Sources of useful information
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Index
About the authors
