Conferences - Peter Crow | Helping boards govern with impact

Published on: 3 May 2014

Invitation to submit a paper to #corpgov conference in Croatia

A few days ago, I was invited to submit a paper to the 10th European Conference on Management Leadership and Governance (ECMLG). The 2014 edition is being hosted in Zagreb, Croatia. I'm humbled by the opportunity to offer a contribution.

The deadline for paper submission is mid-June. My topic will 'access'. Simply stated, the paper will suggest that governance research needs to move on from its predilection with typically quantitative secondary data, to study what actually occurs in the boardroom. It is my view that first-hand observations are crucial if we want to truly understand how boards work, and to make credible suggestions about how they contribute to business performance. You can read the preliminary abstract here.

Published on: 1 May 2014

Paper accepted onto BAM Conference programme

I received some wonderful news today. My paper, entitled On the use of critical realism to advance governance research beyond correlations, has been accepted onto the main programme of the prestigious British Academy of Management Conference, to be held in Belfast, Northern Ireland in September 2014. You can read the abstract on the Research page if you'd like to know a bit more. (A copy of the full paper will be posted after it is presented at the conference.)

It's humbling to know that others see my work as worthy to be included at this conference. I'm grateful for the opportunity. The feedback that the three reviewers provided (through the usual double-blind review process) was really helpful—both in terms of tweaking the paper, and as guidance for the doctoral thesis as it comes together through the remainder of 2014. Now, to save my pennies for the flights!

Published on: 23 March 2014

ICMLG'14: closing remarks

Well, ICMLG is over for another year. The ACP organisation, and hosts Babson College (Phil Dover and Sam Hariharan, in particular), organised a great conference. Delegates assembled from over 20 countries from the five major continents. The theme of entrepreneurship provided a linking thread between the keynote speakers (Isenberg and Schlesinger), the paper streams and many conversations over coffee and food.

I particularly enjoyed the provocative sessions of Isenberg and Schlesinger, and appreciated the opportunity to test some of the ideas that are emerging from my research, especially with researchers from outside the Anglosphere. That feedback will result in some adjustments to the way that my thesis is written up. To everyone who offered feedback: thank you!

I commend this conference to all management, leadership and governance researchers, and practitioners with an interest in these and related fields. Next year, the conference venue is in the southern hemisphere, in Auckland New Zealand. The co-hosts will be AUT and Massey University. Certainly, I am looking forward returning the hospitality afforded to me in the international conferences that I've been fortunate enough to attend in the last couple of years.

Published on: 22 March 2014

ICMLG'14: Visit to Cambridge Innovation Center

The organisers of ICMLG'14 provided delegates with a treat to cap of the first day of the conference—a guided visit to the Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC). After a somewhat circuitous transfer from Babson to CIC—in a yellow grade school bus no less—we were provided with a guided tour of the facility, after which we were given the opportunity to interact with many of the people that work there. The CIC is a huge facility. It's quite unlike anything I had seen before. Some notable points about the CIC (for me at least) included:

Adjacent to MIT, CIC is a serviced office facility on steroids. It is designed to bring entrepreneurs, startups and ambitious people and the companies together, into a community where they can work on their ideas, grow (if they are any good) and maybe even secure investment to really take off.
It claims to be the largest facility of its type in the world, with more startups clustered in one place than anywhere else in the planet
Approximately 700 companies, from one-person hot-desk type operations, through to larger established companies (including Apple and Google, we were told) are located there. Five hundred of them are startups, all of whom are ambitiously hoping to become scale-ups (a new term I learnt: it's the next level beyond a startup, once the company is underway).
Companies resident at the CIC have attracted over US$1.8bn of investment and venture capital (wow, that's a serious number, and is indicative of the calibre of the ideas and the people behind them).

The concept of providing a large-scale facility for startups to come together, rub shoulders with each other and with supporting enterprises (from food, gym and back-office support, to funders, lawyers and other large-scale firms) makes sense. My early view is that this type of facility runs rings around incubators and small-scale clusters that you see elsewhere. The vital difference is the support of the large firms and the resources they bring.

We spent a couple of hours on the site, including receiving a briefing on the Smart Cities concept, before moving off to dinner at the Charthouse—a relaxing cap to a busy day.

Published on: 22 March 2014

ICMLG'14: We don't know what we don't know

Peter Harrington, of Venture Simulations in the UK, presented an interesting talk on the value of simulation to enhance training and learning, particularly in entrepreneurial settings. One of the biggest challenges that managers and boards face is that they don't know what they don't know. When confronted with extreme or extremely rare situations, boards often don't know how to react or what a range of response mights might be.

Many directors and entrepreneurs don't like being talked to or talked at. They like to do and to try. Harrington asserted that experimentation is good, and that the use of simulators is very useful for discovering what we don't know. Simulations help new pilots (for example) learn to fly without the expense or danger of using a real aircraft. They also help experienced pilots test themselves in extreme situations to practice, to make mistakes and to learn how to cope. Harrington provided a graphic example. The safe landing of US Airways 1549 in the Hudson River—the so-called "miracle on the Hudson"—can be attributed to, in part at least, the many hours Capt "Sully" Sullenberger spent in the flight simulator every six months, training himself to handle himself and the aircraft in extreme situations.

Boards, entrepreneurs and managers may well be able to derive significant value from authentic simulation activities, to expose themselves and their company to extreme market forces, strategic options and other situations and, in so doing, improve their capability to respond well. Such application would require greater levels of engagement in the learning and development process however, but I suspect the time spent would deliver a payoff quite quickly. If you want to to effect an introduction to Peter Harrington (he runs a commercial business developing and selling simulation systems), I'd be happy to do so. Please note I have no commercial or other interest in this offer, it is simply an offer to refer.

Published on: 22 March 2014

ICMLG'14: Keynote presentation day 2

The keynote speaker to kick off the second day of ICMLG'14 was Dr Leonard Schlesinger. Dr Schlesinger was recently appointed Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard University.

The talk—which built on Isenberg's entrepreneurial ecosystems talk on day 1—explored entrepreneurial thought and action, the primary point being that entrepreneurs are action-oriented rather than thinking-oriented. Whereas the normal modus operandi of established companies is built on structure and linearity, entrepreneurial activity is rather messy. Further, the future cannot readily be predicted (despite the best attempts of consulting firms and mature businesses to do through through detailed and systematic planning processes). Therefore, different approaches are required. Instead of "Where to?", the question needs to be "Where to next?" As such, a degree of predictability comes through the process of taking short steps. The goal should be to map out the next few steps, and to be agile based on known resources and known landscape at that time.

Schlesinger had much to say, more than what is reasonable to share in this post. His talk would have been quite provocative for many listeners, but I revelled in his frank commentary. They have motivated me to pause and review of some of the assumptions that underpin my doctoral research work, which is great. I'll start that process on the flight from Boston to the Midwest on Saturday morning.

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