IMHO: How to get your board working as a team
Building trust is essential on a high-performing board.
When joining a board, one of the first questions directors must ask themselves is whether they can trust these people with whom they are sharing liability. Director liability is a top issue for boards, with 83 per cent reporting a need for reform in this space in the 2024 Directors Sentiment Survey.
Trust is an essential currency for boards. Without trust, how can one justify the liability risk? For this reason, David Gonski AC proclaimed at a director conference that “a board must be a team”.
Gonski has served on more than 40 boards including ANZ Bank, ASX Limited, Morgan Stanley (Australia) and Singapore Airlines. He is currently the Chancellor of the University of New South Wales and continues to serve executive and non-executive directorships.
I often observe leaders talk about the importance of the top team working cohesively, but rarely do I hear them talk about boards as teams.
Gonski warned that “group performance is something we (board members) don't spend enough time on cultivating and improving”, and that “without respect and trust, there’s a danger of unpleasantness and suspicion, and that the debate, rather than assisting the company, becomes a forum for those wishing to be the standout at the meeting”.
Keen to further explore board leadership, teamwork and the influence boards have on organisational culture, I reached out to Gonski and, in his signature style, he cut straight to the chase.
His view is the board must work as a team to build the level of trust and respect needed to perform at the highest level. For Gonski, teamwork is almost synonymous with board work, which involves putting egos to the side.
“If your ego can't take being in a team, then you shouldn't be on a board,” he said.
Teamwork is the path to openness and truth seeking, and the only way this can be attained is through leadership. The chair sets the tone and the partnership between the chair and CEO creates the firm foundation from which all relationship dynamics in the organisation flourish.
How can boards work more like a team, and less like a group?
The difference between a team and a group is teams have a shared purpose, shared goals, shared KPIs and must collaborate to achieve them. Conversely, a group is a collective of individuals with individual purposes, goals and KPIs, who must cooperate to achieve them. For these reasons, teams are interdependent, while groups are independent.
Boards, like leadership teams, must behave like a team to effectively govern. Their success is measured on shared performance and customer health indicators. They are not individually appraised, but collectively accountable for the functioning of the organisation. Where boards don’t succeed, they must look inward at their dynamic to understand where the gaps are in their process, capability or leadership.
Board dynamics – how board members interact and work as a team – is an example of how boards directly impact the culture of the organisations they serve. Gonski highlighted the greatest opportunity for board improvement as regular self-assessment of the board dynamic.
“I strongly believe that boards have to self-assess themselves regularly, talk about how they are operating.”
For him, this means going beyond the requisite board appraisal conducted by an outsider once every two to three years, to making it a regular habit after each meeting. “I don’t understand why you would have an in-camera board session before a board meeting, but I do believe in having an in-camera board session after a board meeting.”
He suggests using in-camera board sessions after the meeting to check-in the board dynamic, as well as address the issues that in-camera sessions are usually reserved for. “I do it relatively regularly where we actually say, ‘was that meeting all right?’”
Directors and leadership teams hold the greatest lever for performance. How they interact and collaborate directly impacts the culture and performance of the organisations they lead. They set an example for the whole organisation, role modelling not just what to do, but how to work together to achieve it.
Set the tone for teamwork from the top
While leadership teams set the tone from the top, it takes the combined efforts of all individuals working collaboratively in teams throughout the organisation to realise collective potential and drive the organisation forward.
Culture is a shared responsibility – between leaders, people and culture professionals, and every single team member. While it does not solely lie on the governing body’s shoulders, they do hold most of the power and must recognise their influence as role models and custodians of culture.
Stephanie Bown helps leaders and leadership teams find synergy – where together, they’re better – transforming the way leaders connect, align and inspire. She is the author of two books on high-performance: Curious, Connected & Calm: How leaders are better together, and Purpose, Passion & Performance: How systems for leadership, culture and strategy drive the 3ps of high-performance organisations.
We have two copies of Curious, Connected & Calm: How leaders are better together to give away to DD readers. Enter by emailing media@iod.org.nz, add the book’s title in the subject line and include your mailing address. Two lucky winners will be drawn at random and announced in the next DD.