What's next for boards? Coping with the 'instant of everything'.

• Author: Henderson, Nina
• Position: THE NEXT BIG THING

It is unlikely that the approaches taken to date will enable board oversight to meet the opportunities and challenges presented by the emerging environment.

As broad access to instant information accelerates, constituent relationships continue to change.

Expectation of response and gratification are redefined. Cultural differences are perceived to be both narrowed by social media and widened, given the ability to select affinity via the Internet.

Some questions, then, for a deep-thinking board: Is the Internet an enabler that eliminates "borders" via engagement? Or a developer of "ether tribes" with only likeminded members? Does a "seamless" flow of immediate information and relationship management of both customer and employee result in an enterprise able to navigate sustainable success effectively? Does digital management without human physical interaction produce a team, culture, loyalty and belonging? Will these factors be integral to evolving enterprises?

These potentially seismic changes to human interaction, and therefore organizational composition, are happening across the spectrum of business, academia, health care and government entities. Emerging disruptors and others yet to be identified will offer opportunity to enterprises with their "fingers on the pulse."

How will governance oversight evolve in this emerging environment, which I term the "instant of everything"? Does current board structure and oversight approach offer the insight, flexibility and bandwidth to oversee enterprise activity and to enable enterprise vitality in this instant information and response environment?

Over the last 15 years, we have witnessed board oversight respond to changing business conditions, technology, regulation, etc. by compartmentalizing needed oversight. Oversight "silos" have been created by adding subject responsibilities to current committees and/or dedicated committees have been newly formed.

Compartments by their nature can result in the inability to see "the forest for the trees." For example, risk, compliance and assurance, all categories of enterprise risk, have been topics for some time. Focusing on component aspects, one may never grasp the full picture of enterprise risk and its potential impact.

Formulaic "box ticking" can also contribute to a myopic view and/or distract focus from examining enterprise progress against the marketplace, objectives and results. Similarly, board composition has become a bright-line topic...