The Board service is a wonderful opportunity to get out of your daily business routine and to develop your ability consider an organization as it is, instead of only the functional areas that you’ve handled in the past. It also exposes you more diverse problems and issues that companies face. You may be faced with difficult decisions that impact people negatively, like the decision to make redundancies or shutting down a branch. These situations require you to look at the issue at hand and not to be influenced by emotional responses or those of your colleagues.
Another issue that comes up is how to ensure that a large number of voices are heard during discussions and in the decision-making process. There are a number of strategies boards employ to accomplish this. Some boards allow directors to be devil’s advocates during meetings, whereas others utilize whiteboards to brainstorm ideas and spit out ideas prior to making any decisions. This helps to separate the decision-making process from individual personalities and could assist in avoiding groupthink.
Boards can also improve their effectiveness by embracing the need to question the established practices that have been in place for a long time. For example, a number of board members are looking at their committee structures. They question whether they are serving their function and are an efficient way to run meetings. They are looking for new methods to discover patterns and insights hidden in digital and data tools.
