Food for Thought

• Published date: 01 September 2018
• Date: 01 September 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/bl.30117

8 BOARD LEADERSHIP

BOARD LEADERSHIP: INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO

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BOARD LEADERSHIP

INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO GOVERNANCE

see the way in which your organization

comes to be preoccupied.

However, reality is shown in Figure

4. Your organization is just a tiny piece

in the reality of our rapidly changing

world. Threats—and opportunities—

are constantly coming at it. The board

has a very big job if it is going to direct

and protect the organization in light of

this reality.

This is disturbing work. Robert

Greenleaf (1991, pp. 19–20) said “the

opening of awareness stocks both the

conscious and unconscious minds with

the richness of resources for future

need. But it does more than that: it

is value building and value clarify-

ing.… Awareness … is the disturber

and an awakener. Able leaders are

usually sharply awake and reasonably

disturbed. They are not seekers after

solace.” Becoming sufficiently aware

to exercise strategic foresight is a chal-

lenge for most boards.

There are many ways in which

boards can enhance their learning to

enable wise decisions. Here, I want to

particularly focus on the awareness

needed to begin useful foresight work.

All of us have ingrained “default” set-

tings. These come from our personal

experiences, the way in which we were

raised, organizational biases, cultural

biases, and even civilizational biases.

We are, in a sense, programmed to

experience reality in certain ways.

Most of this is unconscious. Even when

we think we are being future-oriented,

we may be deluding ourselves. “Much

of what passes for future-think is an

imagination of what the world would

look like if it ‘worked right’ … it is an

imagination dominated by now, which

aims to imprint the ‘best’ of now upon

the future. The trouble is that the

‘best’ of now … is not very satisfac-

tory (in a world of profound change.”

William Bernbaum said this in 1969.

He was right then, nearly 50 years

ago; how much more profound is the

change in which we now live?

Boards today need to devote sig-

nificant time to activities that can jolt

them out of their current-focused,

default thinking mode into a mental

space that enables them to think

wisely about the future—to help create

the future, rather than simply letting

it happen to them. The Policy Gover-

nance® system allows you to place

your day-to-day operational concerns

into a system of carefully crafted Exec-

utive Limitations policies, which, when

rigorously monitored, provide organi-

zational protection. The Ends policies

provide a place in which to provide

direction. However, that direction will

only be as good as the strategic fore-

sight work you do. I challenge you to

take advantage of the opportunity to

make it the best possible direction,

ready to carry your organization into

the future to make a real difference in

our world. Focus on being not a hands-

on, but a heads-up board!

References

Greenleaf, R. (1991). The servant as

leader. Indianapolis, IN: The Robert K.

Greenleaf Center.

McKinney, M. (2005). Where is

the wisdom we have lost in knowl-

edge? Retrieved from http://www.

foundationsmag.com/pvwisdom.html

Mintzberg, H. (1987). Crafting strat-

egy. Harvard Business Review, 65(4),

66–75.

Nelson, R. (2015, February). Fore-

sight Canada. Presentation to The

Governance Coach™ team. (See also

“Strategic Foresight: A New Obliga-

tion for Boards of Directors” in Board

Leadership 139, May–June 2015.)

Foresight

(continued from previous page)

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Good management is the

art of making problems

so interesting and their

solutions so constructive

that everyone wants to get

to work and deal with them.

Paul Hawken