John Battelle: We have the founder of theBoardlist,
a woman I've known now for quiet sometime,
who is very focused on changing the composition
of boards.
I want you to please join me in welcoming
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, founder of theBoardlist.
[applause
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy: Thank you, John.
Hey everyone, how are you?
Thank you again for having me, John.
I am super excited to be here.
I've heard the first couple of days are very
hard act to follow.
I do think the conversation has been teeth
up for me in many ways, because I understand
corporate governance and boards has been the
subject of a lot of conversation of the last
couple of days, which is no surprise.
Just before, I get started, by show of hands,
how many of you've sit on any kind of board?
Do any kind of board-work?
At least 50 percent of the audience.
I presume for the remain of the audience,
our boards of interest is something you would
like to serve on, or do you feel like boards
are places you interact as an executive?
I presume the answer is yes.
What I want to do in the next effectively
12 to 15 minutes is really talk to you about
how to be a better board.
You'll understand I didn't say, "Build a better
board."
I started with, "Be a better board."
You can't talk about board building without
also talking about governance.
It doesn't matter if you build the world's
most diverse board, if you don't do the job
that you're there for.
As I have played out my career on both public,
private, and non-profit boards, I think it's
been amazing to me, and particularly of the
last two years since I founded theBoardlist,
just how much we need to go back to basics
of thinking about what the boardroom is all
about.
Let's get started.
First of all, I am going to spend this morning
on three themes -- boards 101, the big idea,
and a thought to leave you with.
Hopefully, all three will invoke some thinking,
and maybe a different perspective, or maybe
back to the fundamentals of board building.
Why does this matter?
We all know boardrooms need to change.
No surprise, this has been the topic of conversation
over the last couple of days.
By the way, it's not just diversity and the
need for diverse skills.
It's the fact that we have activist looking
at board tenure and the lack of board governance.
We have digital disruption.
We've a whole new class of consumers called
millennials.
We have scandal.
Unfortunately, all of these things, or fortunately,
all of these things together are creating
an impedes for the first time in a long time
for boardrooms to change.
What does that mean?
How do we begin that conversation?
Well, I want to begin it actually not with
the topic of diversity, but with something
more fundamental.
My first key message for you is the boards
are failing today because they fail to do
the fundamentals well.
Topic number one, what does it mean to run
a great boardroom?
When I reflect on being an operator inside
the boardroom, and for all of you who've been
operators inside a boardroom, what are we
told when we enter boardroom?
Well, you don't enter a boardroom as an operator,
with your operator hat on.
[laughs]
You're supposed to come and influence, because
you know your job isn't to be the person running
the show.
You're not part of the management team.
You are there to help guide the company.
In one fundamental respect, boards really
need to get their act together in a way that
operators uniquely will know.
Boards need to start running far more disciplined,
far more like operators do in a couple of
key ways that could entirely change the way
boards operate today.
I was an operator.
The reason I find myself frustrated sometimes
sitting in the boardroom is not because I
want to be on the management team but because
I want the boardroom to run with the same
discipline and thoughtfulness with which we
build our management teams and run our management
teams in order to create the most effective
companies.
I would argue, in the first place, we're failing
in the boardroom is failing at the fundamentals.
At the most basic level, we spend a lot of
time talking about diversity, a lot of time.
If you just reverse that question, why are
we talking about diversity, because how can
you run any company or group effectively if
you don't have the needed skills and perspectives
present?
When we look at most private boardrooms, they
lack an independent.
When we look at most public boardrooms, they
lack diversity of multiple types.
When we look at the average tenure of boards,
we have two complete extremes.
We have public boards who fail to turn over
their boardrooms rapidly enough to really
change out the skills that are needed for
the companies next three to five years.
When we look at private boardrooms, they have
no idea of what tenure should look like at
all.
In fact, many people are afraid to put something
in the boardroom as an independent because
they are worried whether that person will
be relevant in three or five years.
I mean, you have extremes, yet neither do
the fundamentals well of putting together
a group of people whose skills and perspectives
are relevant to the next one to three to five
years of the company.
For how many of you in the room do you feel
like you sit on a board where the boardroom
has inside of it the skills and diversity
of skills needed for the companies next one,
two, three years?
Put up your hand.
Lesson number one, if you're sitting in a
boardroom and it is lacking the skills and
perspectives needed, as a board member, what
is your job?
Speak up.
[laughs] Speak up.
If you have a founder on the one end who is
afraid to put an independent in the boardroom,
speak up.
Talk about what a board term should look like.
Is it one year, two years, three years, five
years?
It doesn't matter.
That skill needs to be there.
If you're in a public boardroom and somebody
is looking to you for an answer, and everyone
looks at each other, and no one has the answer.
Your job as a board member should pose the
question about what skills are missing in
the boardroom.
The average tenure of the person in the boardroom
is nine years.
Your job is to say, [laughs] "You know, we're
missing people from this conversation."
By the way, this is like the basics.
This is management 101.
Do you have the skills and the leadership
necessary in the room to do the job?
Number two, are you having the right discussion?
[laughs] Interestingly, when we think about
the right discussions, today there is a plethora
of things that boards aren't really clear
on whether or not they have responsibility
towards those things.
Number one, besides the metrics of success
and growth, is culture, an area of oversight
that the board should have any thesis on.
What do you think?
How many people here believe that culture
is an area that the board should have oversight
on?
How many people today believe your boards
have the mandate to have that conversation?
How many people feel like you have that mandate,
and the infrastructure, and the metrics to
have it consistently?
Exactly.
Culture is just one example of the question
of whether or not boardrooms are having the
right discussions.
The others are actually far more fundamental.
You need access to information.
You need access to the metrics of the business.
You need the ability to have a clear and constructive
debate.
Seems obvious.
Let's continue.
Clear decision-making.
How does decision-making get made in your
boardrooms?
How many people exist in boardrooms today
whereas there is plenty of debate and a lack
of conclusion?
Any of you have that problem?
Have you sit in boardrooms where you talk
about the same thing again, board meeting
after board meeting, yet nobody is really
clear what the conclusion is?
Think about this inside of a management team.
If you were running a team of any kind and
you didn't know how decisions were getting
made, implicitly, explicitly, who's responsible
for making them?
Would we consider that a well-run organization?
Yet in the boardroom, we spend all of this
time amassing great talent, not clear if we're
having the right discussions, not clear for
giving right access to right information,
and even discussing explicitly the mandate
of the board.
Up from that, not clear how decisions get
made.
At the last in the top, of course, is performance
management and accountability, bi-directionally.
This means, and once again, if we went from
the extreme of public boards to private boards,
I'll juxtapose them both.
This means that it's most basic level.
Is the CEO being held accountable for the
performance of the company?
Is the boardroom being held responsible for
its job in providing stewardship and guidance?
How many of your boardrooms does the CEO get
a formal and consistent review?
Four hands went up.
Four hands went up.
How many of your boardrooms do you as board
members get 360 feedback consistently?
One hand.
One hand.
Let's just think about that.
Doing the fundamentals well, boardroom management
101.
How many of you now believe that your boardrooms
are running at their most effective?
How many of you believe you sit inside boardrooms
that are as well run as you look to the CEO
to run the company?
When we talk about boards, we can talk about
the most advanced ideas.
We can talk about cyber security, and blockchain,
and risk management, and digital disruption.
If you don't do the fundamentals well, we
can't expect a great result.
Of course, this comes to one obvious question
-- who's leading the boardroom?
Who is leading the boardroom?
How many of you sit on private company boards?
How many of those private company boards have
a lead independent?
OK, two.
How many of them have a chairman who is distinct
from the CEO?
Two.
How many cases are your boardrooms led by
the CEO?
By the way, I've been a founder-CEO.
I am a founder-CEO.
I put myself in that class, having been a
chairman of my own boards.
I'm the chairman of the board at theBoardlist.
In any event, in the public companies in the
US, what you would find is the vast majority
of the time, the CEO was also the chairman.
In Europe, by the way, this is almost never
the case.
I sit on the board of Ericsson where, in fact,
the CEO is not allowed to be the chairman
of the board.
He is distinctly not allowed.
That role has been mandated to be separated.
In any event, I would come back to the most
startling observation I've had on boards over
the last 10 years that I've served, is that
you can put together the most brilliant group
of people, but unless they are led effectively,
you will not have an effective boardroom.
When we talk about the things I showed you
on the previous slide, how do those get solved
if you're an operator?
Somebody leads.
I presume most of the people in the room lead
a team of some kind.
Is that fair to say?
You work really hard to amass the right talent.
Let's presume you're the leader of that group
or the leader of that team.
How many of you ever left the room and given
your team a task, and been frustrated when
you get back, the collected brainstorming
session or whatever task you've given them
comes back of poor quality than you'd expect
for the team you just put in the room?
Why?
Because when you leave a really talented group
of people together, no matter how talented,
if there is not someone leading or facilitating,
you do not get the best out of that team.
What's the challenge when you have the CEO
and the chairman role in one role together?
What's the obvious issue with that?
It pains me as a founder to say it, by the
way.
It pains me as a founder.
[laughs] The obvious issue which is the only
lens in the boardroom is the lens of the CEO.
If the CEO is the chair, all information comes
through that lens.
That's great in peace time.
Is it good in war time?
Is it good in times of challenge and disruption?
Is it right to have only one lens into the
boardroom?
Is the board's job to provide, again, diverse
perspectives, gathered together into a whole
that helps guide the company?
As you sit here today, before we move off
this topic, one of the things I want you all
as board members or aspiring board members
or people who work in the boardroom to do
is to go back and challenge yourself and your
boardrooms to figure out who is leading that
boardroom dynamic, and how do you make it
more effective?
I'd argue today leaving this to an implicit
play-out of whatever the CEO's agenda is,
hoping that one of the venture capitalists
in the room steps up because they have a bigger
ownership perspective and will take a perspective
beyond their own position for all shareholders.
Hoping that someone is going to play a leadership
role, in fact, doesn't make it happen.
If you want to be a better board, find leadership
in the boardroom, identify who it is, and
commit yourself to the fundamentals of building
a great team together.
I'm going to go on to two bigger ideas, having
talked about boardroom fundamentals.
Of course, we can talk about the boardroom
and the things that need to shift in the boardroom
and in companies if we want to see change.
Most people would fundamentally agree that
boardrooms are about power.
Any disagreement with that?
Boardrooms are about power, fundamentally.
What is the bigger idea with regard to power
in the boardrooms?
This comes not just to being a better board
but building a better board.
The fundamental issue with boardrooms today
is that people see power as a finite resource.
Managing a boardroom historically has been
a power play.
It's about who is in control.
Who is in control?
That is the way boardrooms run.
Let's step back to a bigger idea.
Is power a finite resource?
Should boardrooms run on a dynamic that if
one person has power, everybody else is powerless?
No, because the key inside, and the way boardrooms
will advance, the way diversity will advance,
the way it all advances is by starting to
think about power and how to use power not
as a finite resource but as an infinite resource.
What do I mean by that?
Many of you know that I'm here because I'm
the founder of theBoardlist, which is a platform
that allows leaders with board experience
to nominate diverse talent for boards.
Those people, in turn, are discovered as companies
are looking for new and emerging talent to
once again re-energize and help shift the
boardroom.
What's our key inside at theBoardlist?
At the end of the day, it works on a fundamental
principle that people who have power, i.e.,
they're sitting in boardrooms.
They are in whatever club you consider [laughs]
to hold board members.
They refer talent who then gets discovered
for boards.
Why do they do it?
They do it because, in turn, once that person
gets their first board seat, they feel great.
They feel an emotional and social response
and reward to helping put somebody else into
power.
It turns out that the most powerful people
in the world enjoy one thing that the rest
of us all need to appreciate.
It's not that they enjoy holding power.
It's that they, in fact, get energy from sharing
power.
Boardrooms will change if we stop thinking
about it as a place where things need to be
controlled and power needs to be controlled,
and start thinking about boardrooms, about
ourselves, about ourselves as board members
or aspiring board members, or people in any
position of leadership as people who have
the ability not only to become powerful, but
in fact, to share power.
If you think about a big idea for today, the
basic idea is get the board fundamentals right.
Doing the fundamentals well will actually
build a great boardroom.
Above that, if you want to become someone
who helps change the nature of how boards
work and how companies work, you need to shift
from a perspective of thinking that it's all
about harnessing power for yourself.
It's about starting to share power with others.
In fact, the more power you share, the more
power you get.
It's the fundamental lesson at theBoardlist
-- the more power you share, the more power
you get, [laughs] because power multiplies.
It turns out it's not a finite resource.
It's an infinite resource.
I want you to think about it as a bigger idea,
whether you're in the boardroom today or not.
If you're in the boardroom, how do you move
from feeling powerful to letting power flow?
To whom are you going to let power flow?
How do you start to share power in a way that
it will come back to you and to everybody
else in the boardroom or in your management
team or in any leadership circle that you
run multiplied?
The last two ideas I want to leave you with
are these.
When we think about sharing power, with whom
do we naturally think about sharing power?
Those in our network, right?
I love theBoardlist.
I was the founder.
I love it because I think about smart and
amazing women I know, and I refer them to
theBoardlist all the time.
When they get a board, I do feel in fact the
reward and the excitement of seeing somebody
else who's great rise to a position of power
and influence.
I do it very naturally within my network.
That's a great thing, right?
It is, but there's only one thing that is
better than sharing power naturally within
your network.
Any ideas what it is?
What happens when you share power within your
network?
Audience member: [inaudible 18:40] .
Sukhinder: Right.
Today, I benefit from the fact that I am putting
together amazing women on theBoardlist, who
in turn by the way are my power endorsers
and who bring other women.
On the one hand, that's great.
I can pat myself on the back.
On the other hand, what I've also realized,
as I've been on this journey over the past
two years, is that if my network looks like
this, there's also a problem with it.
This is the last idea I'll leave you with,
as we come off the topic of boards, and being
better board members, and building and sharing
power.
It's this.
In fact, it's true that for all of us, myself
included, the work doesn't stop when you share
power with people in your network because
if you're like many of the people in the room
and you are a one presenter, power doesn't
flow very far.
What is the true opportunity for power?
What is the true opportunity for power flow
and power sharing?
It's to create a true opportunity for access.
That means for every one of us, we are going
to have to be far more deliberate about thinking,
about how we share power and let power flow
with people who are not the obvious people
in our network, but to reach to the farthest
points of our network.
Maybe beyond our network, to find opportunities,
to let others who really have the opportunity
inclusion really access power as well.
Three big ideas.
Do the fundamentals well.
Boardrooms win when boardrooms are led and
managed well.
Number two, if you are in any kind of position
where you think all day about amassing power
or being powerful, shift your thinking.
Start to think about how you share and let
power flow to others, and you will create
change in any organization you lead, inside
the boardroom or out.
Lastly, when you think about those you share
power with, look beyond your obvious networks
and think about creating a true opportunity
for power flow and inclusion five generations
out from where you are today.
Thanks so much.
[applause]
