I am innately curious, and, in the spirit of openness, was born before JFK’s audacious “We choose to go to the moon" challenge. Consequently, and as you would expect for a child of the sixties and seventies, I have seen and done a few things.

While these statements are evidentially correct, the past twenty-five years have seen me concentrate my efforts on something reasonably narrow, but which seems, to me, to be important if societies are to function well: that leaders and boards make great decisions and build enduring companies. 

I am all-in when it comes to boards, governance, and performance, but make no claims about having it all together. No, not at all. However, I have noticed a few things that stand in the way of great outcomes:

• We have a problem in our boardrooms. One in six directors understand the business of the business, many directors can only recall two or three of the seven duties they owe, and one in twenty boards are completely aligned when it comes to the purpose of the business (the reason it exists). Given these indicators, how can boards do their job if they don’t know what their job is?
• Almost all directors I know are well-intentioned, and some boards are effective. However, weak engagement and faulty moral compasses remain a real problem.
• Over the decades, best practice recommendations,  governance codes, and compliance measures have been promulgated as harbingers of better outcomes. But, at what cost? What has been achieved, and what difference have they made, in real terms?
• Conceptions of corporate governance vary (widely) despite the original definition being perfectly adequate. Richard Eells, who coined the term, said corporate governance describes the structure and functioning of the corporate polity, the board. Sir Adrian Cadbury offered a refinement in 1992 with "the means by which companies are directed and controlled." Why the variety of understandings?

On this final bullet point, the original definition highlights the two critical aspects of board work (conformance and performance), and these are directly aligned with the etymological root of governance: to steer, to guide, to pilot. 

Have you noticed that, in life, you cannot comply your way to a great outcome? Closing a barn door simply limits passage. Boards are no different. If the company is to thrive (meaning: achieve and sustain high performance), a future focus is critical. Compliance is necessary, of course, but it is far from sufficient. The barn door must be open, so boards can look out, beyond the business, and make decisions. And, because boards are social, the key to achieving success in this regard is likely to be [underpinned by social mechanisms] as well. 

Reputable research supports this: Values, culture, capability, activity, and behaviour matter far more than structure and regulation. Such is Boardcraft, a pragmatic philosophy to help directors take the company they govern into the future. And what is there not to like about that?

Fifty-nine years ago, on 10 July 1967, New Zealand adopted decimal currency. The then Finance Minister, Robert Muldoon, championed the change from pounds, shillings and pence, to dollars and cents. Many older people struggled to make the change. After all, they had had a lifetime of operating within a completely different paradigm. But now, almost six decades on, we take decimal currency for granted. What changed?

Some people seem to embrace change well, others tend to be much more comfortable with the status quo. Some openly resist change. Society is, by definition, dynamic. Therefore, change is normal and natural. And the way we react/respond to change can have a significant bearing on our quality of life. Time is a factor too. 

Companies, as are microcosms of society, are not  immune to change either. The emergence of new technologies (think: decarbonisation, AI), expectations expressed by shareholders and stakeholder and activist groups), and competitors, not to mention geopolitical changes and natural disasters, have the potential to completely upend a once-high performing business.

How do you and the board you serve on cope with change?

As a board director, are you a pioneer, on the vanguard, championing change initiatives? Or, are you one back, happily embracing changes that others define? Perhaps you are more ambivalent, simply accommodating change when it comes? Or, do you tend to be resistive, because keeping safe and protecting inherent value is more important to you?

In practice, these mindsets are, to a greater or lesser extent, present at every board meeting. Sanguine-types, who tend to be enthusiastic about new options; driver-types are all about the outcome; guardians, who tend to be detail-oriented and strive to protect what is in place; and, phlegmatics, who want to know everyone is agreeable before moving on.

That there are differing mindsets is a good thing, for it helps consider change from different perspectives. No board director needs to ‘cope’ alone. But, as with the adoption of decimal currency, the decision itself is not the greatest challenge: after the decision the board needs to  ensure the desired outcome and associated benefits are realised in practice. And that is what differentiates a great board from the rest. Such is boardcraft.

May 17th–23rd: Familiar territory—living on the land of the long white cloud.

To see earlier pictures: May 1st–2nd, May 3rd–9th, May 10–16th.

May 17: Left, only.

May 18: Announcing one’s arrival.

May 19: Afternoon [de]light

May 20: An early-morning chauffeur-ride to client engagements, for the third day in a row.

May 21: Autumnal hues

May 22: Ah, those long white clouds…

May 23: What picture are you in: Life? Work? Play?

May 10–16th: Life on the road, in a proud republic.

To see earlier pictures: May 1st–2nd, May 3rd–9th.

May 10: Rush hour… late morning in autumnal Melrose Estate

May 11: Watching or hiding—or both?

May 12: Growing ambitions.

May 13: Up or down?

May 14: Uber travel, for point-to-point movements.

May 15: Move—yes, but what, where, and when?

May 16: A colourful interlude, en route home.

I have been based in Johannesburg this week, working with boards and directors in both South Africa and neighbouring countries. What has struck me is their entrepreneurial spirit: their ambition to realise the full potential of the companies they govern. That most are looking beyond compliance-based orthodoxy, for clues to help them get ahead, has been refreshing.

While conversations have been wide-ranging—from board structures and compositions, to enquiries about the Strategic Governance Framework, corporate governance codes, board pack designs and board meeting frequency—one topic has stood out: artificial intelligence.

On AI, everyone wants in it seems, but not necessarily to deploy AI tools and agents directly in the boardroom (although some are). Instead, having heard of my involvement with AI since 1984 (I studied the topic and built an ‘engine’ at university), they wanted to hear my perspective on several macro issues—especially how companies might gain, and possibly even sustain, competitive advantage.

My responses to directors have been fairly candid:

• Maintain an open mind.
• Technical advances are racing along. What was bleeding edge yesterday, may well be mainstream soon, or even passé.
• Don’t try to become an expert—learn to ask great questions of experts.
• Ensure projects that incorporate AI tools are tested against corporate strategy for alignment. A good question to ask is something like, “How will this project advance our strategic ambitions?”
• The business case to secure efficiencies and improve effectiveness within business operations, and in the preparation of board reports and administration of board materials, is fairly strong.
• Encourage staff to try stuff, but in your capacity as a director, be vigilant. Ensure the outputs produced by the AI tools (agents) being trialled are reliable and consistent before committing capital. If reliability is questionable, the likelihood of the board making high-quality decisions is low.
• Judgement, reasoning and intuition remain, exclusively, human capabilities.
• Any policies developed need to be policies, not procedures dressed as policy.
• Be cautious of inflated claims and overzealous consultants and sales people!

The appeal is great, but so is the hype, so keep Wittgenstein’s aphorism close:

These are my thoughts, this week. As I listen, read, and learn, I may change my mind. How do you see the so-called ‘AI-opportunity’ emerging?

Have you ever wondered who is looking at your website, and why? My new website was published seven days ago (well, a very similar website), so I decided to look at the analytics, to get an idea.

To my astonishment, some 40,600 total visits (page hits) have been recorded over the past seven days, from just over 8500 unique visitors. Extrapolated, that points to over two million page hits per year.

This sounds impressive. I’m not convinced, and closer inspection shows the numbers are not quite what they seemed at first glance. When ‘include Crawlers/Bots’ is de-selected, a clearer picture emerges: the total visitor count drops to 10600-odd. That about three quarters of the traffic to petercrow.com is not by or from real people is good to know. That they are AI-tools and other systems, hoovering around collecting data justifies our investment in appropriate security. That one-in-five visits is from a mobile device suggests our selection of a tool that provides desktop-, tablet-, and mobile-friendly display options—automatically—was a good decision too.

Turning to the ‘real visitors’ now. If one-in-four Unique Visitors are not bots, about 2100 people visited the some part of the site over the past seven days. Some (most?) will have been curious about the new site. But others looked at one or more Musings articles; and some have checked some other aspect of the capabilities and credentials material.

Even if one or two per cent of these ‘real people’ are genuinely interested (20 per week), and ten per cent of these get in touch, my decades-long quest (to provoke candid conversations to help boards can govern with impact) has, probably, been worthwhile. Onward.