How confident are you when it comes to grammar?

• Do you think an apostrophe was one of the 12 disciples of Jesus?
• Or a semicolon is a regular colon with an identity crisis?
• Do you scatter commas into a sentence with all the discrimination of a shotgun?

If you struggle with grammar, you may well be doing yourself a gross disservice. Kyle Wiens, lays it on the line in this article. He won't hire people with sloppy grammar. Whether you are looking for a job, working on a report, or simply tapping out an email communique, poor grammar may see your goal missed or your message overlooked. 

How well to do contribute in your work environment? Most of us rate ourselves fairly highly, but we all have blind spots. Today, Jessica Hagy offered some simple truths to help us lift our game. She suggested we all need six people around us, to challenge and encourage us to perform well.

Thanks Jessica, your thoughts were a timely reminder for me as I continue to wrestle with my doctoral research. 

The role the judicial system plays in the governance ecosystem—dealing with fraudulent directors, company failures and company liquidations—eats me up. So much value is lost through inappropriate boardroom behaviours and decisions. And shareholders are left to pick up the pieces (and in far too many cases, bury them). Commonsense tells us that it is far better to avoid danger than pick up the pieces afterwards. But how can and should boards improve their performance to avoid fraud or failure events?

Carly Fiorina, an experienced director and previously CEO of ICT giant HP, wrote an interesting piece today. You can read it here. She made some insightful observations:

• Too many Board members serve too long
• Too many board members go along to get along
• Dominate voices and cliques can reduce decision-making quality
• Some board members don't understand the business
• Some board agendas are too full

• Conduct self-assessments and performance reviews
• Institute term limits
• Make board appointment process transparent
• Make board (and particularly decision-making) processes transparent
• Shareholders should hold board accountable (through questions)

While Carly's comments reflect her US-centric experience, most of the observations and antidotes are equally applicable in other countries, including New Zealand. Notice most of Carly's antidotes relate to process and behaviour, and not to director competence (competence is addressed in antidote one only). Carly's call to hold boards accountable is on the money—because boards hold the ultimate responsibility for the performance of the organisation. 

In my experience, the challenge most boards face in this regard is one of implementation. How does one implement an effective governance framework that improves the prospect of good company performance and holds directors accountable? The recently updated The Four Pillars of Governance Best Practice (published by the Institute of Directors in New Zealand) provides a very useful starting point. This document provides useful best practice guidance and a clear code of practice—all aimed at helping directors and boards avoid the sort of carnage (and the expensive involvement of the judicial ecosystem) that we read about far too often in the newspapers. I commend it to all directors and CEOs. 

Are you a reader? I used to be. But university intervened. Thirty years ago, after reading my way through university (text books, journals and articles—not novels or anything of general interest), I lost my appetite for reading. When asked "What are you reading?", I'd answer with "Nothing, university cured me." After plowing my way through heavy material for four years, I had reached the point where I simply did not want to pick up anything longer than an article. I still read a little, but my diet was based entirely on articles published in the popular press (Times, National Geographic, The Economist, HBR), and material I needed to read for work.

A few years ago, after a long hiatus, a switch flipped. I rediscovered reading again—reading for pleasure and relaxation, that is. I can't recall the time, the place or the exact trigger. Like earlier in my life, I still read to learn. But now I also read to relax. Here's a selection of titles I have read recently:

• A Beautiful Mind: Sylvia Nasar
• London, The Biography: Peter Ackroyd
• Into the Wider World: Brian Turner
• The Bridge of San Luis Rey: Thornton Wilder

The following titles are stacked up awaiting my attention:

• Titan: Ron Chernow
• Thinking Fast and Slow: Daniel Kahneman
• One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich: Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
• Created for Community: Stanley Grenz

I tend to read about times, people and places—history and biography. I've discovered that, by reading this sort of material, I relax and learn at the same time. Articles like this motivate me. Reading about the past helps me understand today's world

If you read, I'd be interested to hear your story.

Frank Partnoy posted a great article on the HBR Blog Network today.

I've heard it said many times in business circles that "velocity wins"—meaning the faster we move and the faster we make decisions, the better. Partnoy disagrees. He argues that speed is killing our decisions. If we get caught up in a fast decision cycle, where speed (of decision-making) is everything, we risk making poor decisions and suffering the consequences as a result. Partnoy commended the decision-making framework developed by John Boyd, fighter pilot and military strategist, as a means of improving decision quality. The framework is called OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act).

In my opinion, OODA has considerable applicability in business. Boyd asserted that the ultimate goal is to act fast, but not necessarily first. I agree. Making smart decisions is more important than outright speed.

I agree with Baker and Mowbray. Governance is a socially dynamic phenomenon, with many variables and much complexity. Numerous researchers and practitioners have investigated structural and composition factors over many years. More recently, world-class governance researchers, including Leblanc, Huse and Nicholson, have investigated behavioural and process factors. To date, the research findings have been inconclusive, and causality with performance is yet to be established.

Despite flights of fancy from some commentators, slow progress by researchers, and much frustration all round, the search for a link between governance and company performance is of enormous practical importance. Therefore, efforts to understand the mechanisms within the governance phenomena, and any relationship with company performance, must continue. However, the research agenda much be changed. Attention must move away from consideration of individual characteristics—toward a holistic consideration of governance—if further insights are to be gained and any clear understanding is to be achieved.

My doctoral research efforts attempt to build on Leblanc and Nicholson's work. I plan to use a longitudinal multiple-case study approach (to understand the processes, behaviours and dynamic interactions within the governance system) to focus on the way Boards make decisions. Strategic decision-making has been postulated to be an important factor in the governance–performance relationship. If this is correct, a link between a strategic decisions and subsequent improved company performance should be apparent, after some longitudinal delay. The challenge will be to determine whether or not strategic decision-making can be attributed to the Board.

So where does this leave us? I certainly don't have any silver bullets, and progress is likely to be frustratingly slow. Boardroom diversity is important, however I suspect a focus on decision-making and related factors will reveal more about board performance than arguments about the number of women at the board table. Let's push on.