The third stopover of my trip across Western Europe sees me in the beautiful city of Vienna, for the Global Peter Drucker Forum on 28–29 November. This year, the organisers expanded the programme to include a half-day 'innovation leadership summit' (summarised here) and an afternoon of round table and workshop sessions (more on that later).

About 170 people gathered at the House of Industry, the headquarters of the Federation of Austrian Industries. The beautiful building was inaugurated by Franz Josef in 1911. The format  of the summit was straightforward: three panel-based sessions—discussions that explored innovation from three perspectives. A lot of thought-provoking material was shared. Here's a few of the insights that stood out (for me, anyway):

Julie Teigland, Regional Managing Partner of EY Germany, Switzerland and Austria, chaired the first session. Panel members included Curtis Carlson, Founder and CEO of The Practice of Innovation and former CEO of SRI (who developed SIRI); Rita McGrath, Professional at Columbia Business School; and Georg Kopetz, Co-founder of Executive Board TTTech.

Insights: McGrath kicked off the discussion by asserted that strategy and innovation "go together". We can't talk. about one without also discussing the other. 'Digital' is a game-changer because it undermines many of the obstacles (barriers to entry) of market-based contracting. Barriers to entry and the ability to scale are undermined. With it, a fundamental shift, from firms to markets, is underway.

Carlson picked up the discussion by asking whether entrepreneurship is the 'right' thing to be focused on. He noted that, since 1987, fewer than 20 per cent of startups have created any value at all. The problem is that entrepreneurs are pursuing two vital activities in the wrong order. The creation of value needs to precede entrepreneurship. When entrepreneurs focus first on value, then magic can, and often does, happen.

Kopetz entered the discussion by asserting the 'born digital' means 'born global'. There is no option. If you are operating in the electronic world, sovereign borders are meaningless. However, scaling is tough; and collaboration is necessary. Interestingly, nearly all major innovations and step changes occur outside major companies, despite such companies being better resourced the most start-ups.

Denise Kenyon-Rouvinez, Director of the IMD Global Family Business Center, chaired the second session. Panel members included Betsey Zeigler, CEO of 1871; Alex Osterwalder, Entrepreneur and Business Model Innovator; Yoshi Takashige, VP Marketing Strategy and Vision at Fujitsu; and Hal Gregersen, Executive Director of the MIT Leadership Center and MIT Sloan School of Management.

Insights: ​Having set the scene in the first session, the purpose of this session was to 'talk dirty'. Innovation is most likely to occur when people crash into each other. When the do, they tell stories, share ideas and commit to dreams. The natural; outflow is an intelligent human-centric society; one that places people at the centre, not processes or things.

Gregersen added that the 'digital economy' emerged, in effect, from the convergence of globalisation, innovation and transformation. Being new, all of these elements operate on the edge of uncertainty. Success (in terms of establishing capability) is dependent on leaders being happy to be wrong, create uncomfortable spaces and remain quiet as they listen carefully for weak signals. Yet somewhat paradoxically, isolation (quiet) is the enemy of innovation; and discovery depends on contact.

Linda Hill, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School chaired the third session just before lunch. Panel members included Vineet Nayar, CEO of Sampark Foundation; Peter Oswald, CEO of Mondi Group; Gilbert Rühl, CEO of Klöckner & Co SE; and Helmut Reisinger, CEO of Orange Business Services.

Insights:​ The purpose of this session was to listen to established chief executives as they offered coal-face insights about innovation, leadership and 'getting things done' in an increasing volatile world. A natural curiosity, combined with a well-developed propensity to both ask questions and listen carefully to answers, is crucial if the protagonistics are to be effective leaders.

Standing back, this Summit created space for interactions between delegates and with the speaker panel. As such it provided a wonderful 'on ramp' to the main event, the Global Peter Drucker Forum, but more on that soon.

My speaking and advisory tour of several European cities got off to a great start on Sunday evening. The first port of call was Stockholm. Liselotte Hägertz Engstam, an established director and board chair in the Nordics, hosted a seminar at Tändstickspalatset; a great venue. The theme was [the] Board's role in innovation strategy and governing new digital business models. ​Some 35–40 directors and board chairs with just over 100 board mandates between them, gathered to hear two speakers, namely, Stephanie Woerner and yours truly. The following paragraphs tell the story.

Stephanie Woerner, a Research scientist at Sloan School of Management in Boston, explored value creation in the digital economy. She observed that many (most?) corporations were somewhat lumberous, offered rather average customer service and, tellingly, were ill-equipped to take advantage of emerging 'digital opportunities'. As such, they are at risk of losing out to younger, more nimble businesses. Woerner identified six questions that companies need to resolve if they are to compete effectively in the digital economy:

Then, Woerner spoke about digital savviness, making two points along the way. First, 62% of directors claim to be 'digital savvy' (and, presumably, ready to tackle emergent challenges), but only 24% are indeed savvy. Second, the presence of three digital savvy directors is sufficient to drive improved [financial] performance outcomes. With that, I sat up. How might a quantitative analysis be a reliable predictor of a contingent outcome? A person at the table I was seated at was similarly exercised. She interjected, asking what the term 'digital savvy' meant. "Great question. We used the experience and qualifications of board members as a proxy." Woerner went on the explain how this has been arrived at: a keyword analysis of resumés (searching for words such as technology, CIO, disruption, software). The presence of such words on a resumé was deemed sufficient to categorise someone as being digitally savvy. You could have heard a pin drop.

While Woerner's assertion (that boards need to be knowledgeable of emerging technology trends) is intuitively reasonable, the underpinning research appeared to be flawed. Others seemed to agree, suggesting it is more important for directors to have a curious mind, read widely and ask probing questions. Notwithstanding this, Woerner's core point was on the money: boards need to get up to speed with technological innovations and the opportunities they present.

I spoke second, the task being to both build on Woerner's comments and add some insights of my own. I started by acknowledging today's reality, that change seems to be the only constant. Woerner set a great platform so there was no need to labour the point, except to say that directors need to work hard to keep up. Importantly,  contemporary recommendations including so-called 'best practices' provide little assurance of better board practice much less improved firm performance.

An important duty of all boards is ensure the future performance of the governed company. If boards are to make a difference, they need to make informed decisions about the future direction of the company, and verify whether desired performance outcomes are actually being achieved or not. Four crucial questions that boards need to ask were tabled, these being:

After suggesting some practical considerations, I introduced the strategic governance framework, an option for more effective contributions (as revealed from my doctoral research and subsequently lauded by both practicing directors and scholars around the world).

The seminar presented two perspectives, namely, that directors need to become a lot more digital savvy if they are to contribute effectively in the boardroom, and that effectiveness is a function of director capability, board activity and underlying behavioural characteristics of directors, not what they look like.

Board readiness to lead well in the emerging 'digital' world is a concern—made worse given boards tend to pay much more attention to historical performance than wrestling with the [largely unknown] future. This is the elephant in the room. 'Digital' is but a symptom, I suspect. If boards are to have any hope of influencing firm performance, what they do in the boardroom (i.e., corporate governance) needs to change.

In a couple of weeks, I'll be in England and Europe, for the third and final time this year. The schedule includes attendance at two conferences, delivery of two keynotes and a bevy of meetings, as follows:

While the schedule is fairly full, some gaps remain for additional meetings (in London).

If you would like to meet, please get in touch. I'd be glad to discuss any aspect of boards, corporate governance or effective board practice; explore a research idea; or respond to (future) speaking or advisory enquiries.