Periodically I hear directors introduce themselves with "I'm a professional director". Sometimes, they add "I sit on NN Bboards", where NN could be as high as eight or even ten (boards). Wow. Presumably this means all of their income comes from director fees, and somehow more Boards is better or more prestigious. Am I impressed? Not really.

The core role of any director is to maximise the performance of the company they serve. But how can they do this effectively if they spread their time across as many as eight or ten boards? Ten boards means a maximum of two days per company each month. In this scenario, how can any director possibly understand the issues and strategic options sufficiently well to contribute effectively around the board table? 

Governing a company is demanding. It takes time to understand the issues. Can a director have too many irons in the fire? The stories starting to emerge in the media suggest the answer is a clear "yes".

On paper, academics and practitioners agree that governance boards have two roles: future performance (strategy) and conformance. Yet in reality most Boards seem to expend most of their energy on conformance. Twenty-four days ago, a California lawyer, Douglas Y. Park, asked why Boards do this. Park's blogpost triggered a robust discussion on a LinkedIn group. Now, 324 comments later, a new model for governance seems to be emerging.

This might seem to be a rather minor event on the world's stage, however I think it is significant, for several reasons. I'll highlight two in particular. First, great minds from all around the world have shared their experiences and thoughts about the topic—without spending anything on travel, accommodation or conference fees. The speed of interaction and "reach" has been truly amazing. Second, in addition to purely commentating and critiquing, correspondents have worked together to create a new model. This is one of the first times I've seen an online discussion add such value.

If this example of going beyond "sharing" to "creating" is a bellwether of future learning and knowledge creation, we are in for an exciting ride!

Prof. David Deakins, Director of the NZ Centre for SME Research at Massey University, provided some great insights this week. He rightly pointed out that small businesses can have a huge impact on the economic development of a nation. He singled out entrepreneurs as having an important role to play.

As I see it, Boards also have a big role to play. First, they can serve as a useful foil for an entrepreneurial founder, particularly when it comes time to create plans, assess opportunities, and monitor performance objectively. Second, Board members have networks and they can (and should) access resources (funding, people, products) in ways that the entrepreneur may not be able to. No doubt there are many other ways Boards can help, but these are two that spring straight to mind. The challenge for Boards is to own this proactive role, and not to just sit back on monitor performance.

Deakins points to the upcoming ICSB conference in June. The SME growth topic will be explored further. I've registered. If you have an interest in growing small business into the next generation of large enterprises, perhaps you should consider attending as well.

Some very interesting articles have appeared in Harvard Business Review recently—articles about motivation, meaning and habits. These articles caught my eye because they were very different from the usual diet of (very good) economic, business and leadership articles. The majority of HBR's articles can be categorised as "tools and techniques that readers can apply to improve their business". In contrast, these articles focus on the person—on improving one's self and one's contribution—and they are just as applicable in the boardroom as amongst the wider workforce.

That's right, directors are not immune. These articles are relevant because we seem to be living in a world where selfish motivations take precedence over "community good". I wonder how many corporate failures could have been averted had the characteristics described in these articles been apparent in the boardroom? Perhaps the global financial crisis and subsequent recession may have been averted as well?

A couple of months ago my PhD supervisor recommended that I read The Arch of Knowledge by David Oldroyd. The book provides a concise (if you call 400 pages concise!) history of the philosophy and methodology of science. In other words, it's about how knowledge is created. My supervisor said I should read it because doctoral students need to understand this stuff.

When I took on this challenge, I expected to skim read the book and move on. However, after persevering with the densely packed text for a couple of weeks, the opposite has happened. Famous philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Galileo, Hume, Popper) and their theses have slowly become real. I've been drawn in. Along the way, I've gained an insight that may well enable me to frame my research in a new way (I'll expand on this in a separate post later). If this insight has legs (I think it does), it should be good for governance research all round.

Reading Oldroyd has provided another (unexpected) benefit. My vocabulary has been expanded—albeit mainly with Greek and Latin phrases like ex suppositione, ex ante, a priori, and a posteriori—by quite some margin. Now if I can get my wife's agreement to allow Greek and Latin alongside English, I might have half a chance of beating her at Scrabble!

In the last couple of days, I've been involved in a very significant discussion with a panel of governance experts from three countries (Canada, USA, New Zealand). We've been exploring the notion of value creation and the role that boards of directors could (should?) be playing in creating value and building wealth. This has been a timely discussion, because it has come not long after my latest research piece which explored this very topic! So, what role should governance boards play in value creation and the development of strategy? Here's a summary of the three main insights from my research:

• Company performance and the level of board involvement in strategy development appear to be linked (active involvement is better)
• The quality of strategic boardroom decisions are highest when proposals are directly linked to agreed strategy
• An open and direct communications style amongst directors (including vigorous debate) is conducive to effective decision-making

I expanded on these points in the group discussion so won't bore you here. Suffice to say, the Board and executive management should work together to identify and agree core purpose (what and why), goals (metrics to measure progress) and strategic imperatives (the big things to be done to achieve the core purpose). Why is doing this together important? It helps with buy-in, with alignment, with the speed and quality of decision-making and, crucially, with the Board taking an active (and accountable) role in creating and building value.

The panel explored a wide range of related topics, some of which are country-specific. You can read the full discussion here (it's a long and rich discussion—86 posts—but well worth the read). If you'd like to discuss this topic further, or explore how to improve value creation in your context, please contact me.