Is Your Board Future-Ready?
At the start of 2022, did you prepare your board directors for what to expect for this year?
Now that we are past the halfway mark, how are they doing on remaining abreast and relevant with the current times? Are they up to the task?
Do they have the right skill sets to compete? Given that we are in the Information age, are they thinking tech and talent? If not, why not?
These are the some of the questions every company or business owner needs to think about when considering what factors rate successful boards.
According to The National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) the authority on board room practices in America, there are three priority concerns of boards in 2022 namely, tech, talent, and the qualities and desired skills of future CEOs.
Serving In A Post Covid Era
Unlike in past years, in 2022, possibly as a result of emerging issues following the impact of COVID 19, company boards are beginning to hire more tech-savvy leaders who understand that the current working environment requires more flexibility around work hours, more representative work environments and more tech-savvy workers and leaders following the onset of remote working.
At the beginning of the lockdown in Kenya in 2020, I recall feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of zoom and online meetings that suddenly became the norm and having to shift from a physical meeting mindset to carrying out 90-100% of my Transformational Coaching and Executive Leadership Training business virtually. However, by the end of that year, I had come to appreciate the current way of doing things and adjusted my business and thinking to the times. As an executive leader, it was either I adapted or I shrink to oblivion.
The latter was not an option and hence even as I think about the qualities of the leaders I would want to work with on a board I think on these lines.
Who is best to serve on a board in a world that is highly technologically driven?
- There is a larger proportion of incoming board members with technology skills (35 percent, compared to 30 percent in 2020).
- There is also higher recruitment of leaders with finance acumen: 53 percent of incoming board members in 2020 had a finance background, compared to 43 percent in 2019.
- Moreover, the push for gender balance on boards though still a work in progress, has significantly improved: in 2018 when women’s representation was less than one in five corporate directors, today men outnumber women on boards by three to one. Thus, the make-up and face of corporate boards post COVID-19 have noticeably changed.
- More employees are willing to change jobs now than pre-COVID placing increased pressure on CEOs to manage this shift and plan for the same as well as think more regularly about succession planning. In a previous blog, I mentioned the Great Resignation.
Above pictured, Larry Fink , CEO Black Rock.
At the start of the year, BlackRock’s CEO, Larry Fink, wrote in an annual letter, “no relationship has been changed more by the pandemic than the one between employers and employees.” The so-called ‘Great Resignation’ has put the psychological employment contract between employees and employers under immense pressure. What were once considered perks to attract and retain talent – working from home, flexible hours – are now the norm. The war for talent is real.
Are 2022 boards therefore equipped to handle this drastic shift?
That’s the real question.
Looking to serve on a board? Or already serving on a board but want to better increase your impact and influence amongst your fellow board members and management?
