Food for Thought

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/bl.30081
• Date: 01 July 2017
• Published date: 01 July 2017

JULY–AUG. 2017 5

“The real mechanism for

corporate governance is

the active involvement of

the owners.”

Lou Gerstner, Lou Gerstner takes

the gloves off: The IBM CEO on

the turnaround—and on his critics.

Business Week (November 18, 2002).

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Board Leadership’s mission is

“to discover, explain, and

discuss innovative approaches to

board governance with the goal

of helping organizations achieve

effective, meaningful, and suc-

cessful leadership to fulfill their

missions.”

Board Leadership aims to ful-

fill this mission by engaging its

readers in a lively and illuminating

inquiry into how board gover-

nance can be made more effec-

tive. This inquiry is based on three

key assumptions:

• Boards exist to lead

organizations; not merely

monitor them.

• Effective board governance

is not about either systems,

structures, processes,

theories, practices, culture, or

behaviors—it is about all of

them.

• Significant improvements are

likely to come only through

challenging the status quo

and trying out new ideas in

theory and in practice.

Uniquely among regular pub-

lications on board governance,

Board Leadership primarily

focuses on the job of board lead-

ership as a whole, rather than on

individual elements of practice

within the overall job.

Over time, Board Leadership

will provide a repository of dif-

ferent approaches to governance

created through its regular “One

Way to Govern” feature.

Here’s what a few of the key

terms we use mean to us:

• Innovative: Creating

significant positive change.

• Approaches to:

principles, theories, ideas,

methodologies, and practices.

• Board governance: The

job of governing whole

organizations.

WHEN WE SAY ...

A Word in Your Ear

by Caroline Oliver, Editor, Board Leadership

EditinG Board Leadership is a plea-

sure and a privilege. Distinguish-

ing the board’s work of governance

from managers’ work in management

is so vital if we are going to be able

to ensure that the organizations in

our midst function effectively and

accountably to achieve great things.

Duplication and confusion hobble us,

obscuring our vision and hampering

our ability to move forward toward it.

As you know, Board Leadership is

constantly seeking innovation, and

in this issue we talk about technol-

ogy and youth—two great sources of

innovation. But perhaps the biggest

source of all is curiosity—the con-

stant question: is there a better way?

Because boards have been around for

a long time, and because they tend

to be populated by people who have

been around a long time, perhaps

the boardroom is not a place where

curiosity naturally abounds. Asking

questions of our CEOs in the name

of due diligence is not the same as

asking ourselves, “How could we as

a board leadership team provide bet-

ter leadership?” Nor is it the same as

asking how our organization and its

goals fit in with what the world as a

whole needs and to what extent our

future is bound up with the future of

all those around us.

The big advances do not usually

come from building step-by-step from

where we are now—although some-

times that is just what is needed. The

big advances usually come from look-

ing at where we are now through a

different lens.

Here are a few new lenses I can

think of:

•What if we were to reinvent

boards as the drivers of civil

democracy?

•What if boards were to work

from a much longer time horizon

than they do today?

•What if board members were

rotated between organizations in

the same field?

•How could risk governance be

completely revolutionized to

increase effectiveness without

bogging the staff and board

down?

•Could board service be made

a civic duty for which we are all

trained?

The pages of Board Leadership

give us the opportunity to explore

questions big and small. I hope you

will let me know about any ques-

tions you have that we can explore

together. Just drop me a line:

coliver@goodtogovern.com.

Caroline Oliver can be contacted at coliver@

goodtogovern.com.

Thinking of publishing in Board

Leadership? Contact managing

editor Caroline Oliver for criteria

at coliver@goodtogovern.com