5 tips for building a strong corporate board

Many companies put off the task of assembling an effective board until they run into trouble.

Behind every great CEO is a great board, and I’ve noticed that startup founders tend to put off the task of building strong boards. Consider successful tech companies like Amazon and Google that built their boards early on. They’re more an exception than the rule, however; more often than not, companies find that there are few, if any, consequences until they run into trouble.

Many boards have gotten into trouble when they think they answer only to the CEO.

After years of advising startups on board management and executive search, I believe that the only true role of the board is to hire and fire the CEO. After all, great boards understand that they are accountable to each other and to company shareholders. Also, great boards are diverse – in thought, background, and perspectives. The statistics bear repeating: Just 10% of Silicon Valley directors are women, and the percentage of VC-backed startups with a female founder or CEO is even lower.

So here are some practical tips for assembling a great board.

Know the company’s vision. Where do you want the company to go? Define what you need the board to do to achieve those goals. Keep that in mind as you consider and define the attributes, skills, and experiences that you need of your board members.

Seek the right skills. Create a simple grid combining attributes that actually exist in the market. Draft a table with all the desired aspects of a “final” board. Fill in the table with prospective ideas for each director, ranking each in terms of depth or fit and whether that person can be recruited. Keep this list current, fresh, and ongoing, and make it an active item of discussion at board meetings.

Develop role and responsibilities for members. As Jim Collins says, “Do you have the right people in the right seats on the bus?” It’s never too early to have committees or key areas of responsibility. Do you have the best head of audit, compensation etc.? Who are the lead directors that you as CEO can rely on in each critical area?

Build a culture and invite debate. Foster a culture of open feedback and independence. You want different opinions and perspectives to help you consider alternatives. Consider the culture and interaction you want from your board: passionate and intense debate, or cerebral and deliberative? You want to recruit a board that pushes you, makes you uncomfortable and challenges conventional wisdom. At the same time, you want a board and not an operating committee – so setting boundaries is important.

Break through your comfort zone. Boards tend to reach for what’s familiar and comfortable, which results in homogeneity. Knowing that, you should strive for diversity of opinion and not be afraid to go against the grain. Keeping that top of mind will help you be open-minded to alternatives you would not have considered in the first place.

Juliet de Baubigny

The Hidden Truth About Today's CIOs And The Future Of Work

There have been lots of discussions lately around how CMOs are potentially swallowing up the role of the CIO. In fact within the next few years CMOs are projected to have larger operating budgets than CIOs. Everywhere you turn it seems like the topic of conversation is around the death of the CIO, how the CIO is in trouble, and how the CIO needs to change; basically doom and gloom. Several of the CIOs I’ve spoken with agree that this can get to be a bit depressing and demotivating and doesn’t really further the conversation. 

Meet Stephen Lamb, he is the CIO of the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) and he sees something that flies in the face of all the talk of the CMO out-pacing the CIO.  BCIT has 45,000 students and a faculty just shy of 2,000.  A few months ago a company wanted to do a case study on the social enterprise collaboration software roll-out at BCIT and they asked to speak to whoever was responsible for all the project marketing and communications, Stephen said, “You’re talking to him.”

According to Stephen CIOs are not standing still or running for the hills, and they are certainly not down and out for the count. In my conversation with Stephen he brought up a few things that are not being addressed and discussed when it comes to the CIO which we need to remember. 

CIOs Touch All Aspects of Organizational Life

CIOs are uniquely positioned within the organization and reach everyone and everything and they are perhaps the only ones with the ability to do so. Whether they do so or not is dependent on the culture of the organization, influence in the C-suite and the disposition of the person (there is no cookie-cutter CIO). For every CIO who is happy to stay back in the data center there is one trying to break free of the old stereotypes of solely looking after boxes and wires. For some reason we seem to be neglecting to highlight this type of CIO, why is that?

CIOs as Scapegoats
It’s convenient to paint CIOs, and for that matter, IT in general as the corporate dinosaurs who are going to become extinct.  Stephen believes that it perhaps helps “validate” the actions of those who have gone off and done their own thing (fueling the App-lification of the enterprise and consumerization of technology).

How About Some Acknowledgement?
There is little acknowledgement and mention of the new breed of CIO. The primary focus is typically on historical pain points and doesn’t take into account the new generation of CIOs that haven’t necessarily cut their teeth on coding or infrastructure management. There are plenty of CIOs who don’t come from a computing background, Stephen is one of them.  CIOs today don’t need to have a pure-bred computing background and in fact it can be more beneficial if they don’t.  Having a background in knowledge management, analytics, marketing, or other line of business can be a unique differentiating factor for today’s CIO.

CIOs can dance!
The notion that you can only be creative if you are in marketing is nonsense!  According to Stephen you have to be creative regardless of what leadership position you are in. At Stephen’s institution, he (nor marketing) is leading all of the creative efforts around marketing and employee adoption. The job is about selling ideas and getting people to change their behaviors or adopt new ways of working more effectively.

CIOs aren’t all about the numbers.
While cost savings and revenue generation seem to fall squarely in the lap of CIOs, many of them are actually deeply vested in supporting and even changing cultures within organizations. Oftentimes the CMO is typically external facing and can have very little connection or affinity with the workforce. The new breed of CIO however, is all about building that connection and adapting to the corporate culture.

Stephen makes some crucial points which I think we should all consider. Most people acknowledge that the role of the CIO is changing, but then again so is the role and responsibility of pretty much everyone else in the C-suite as new technologies and behaviors enter our organizations. I think it’s refreshing to hear from someone such as Stephen who is not focusing on the negative aspects of what is happening to CIOs. CIOs are still very much alive and uniquely positioned to drive amazing change within their companies. As Stephen aptly put, “perhaps a few CMOs might want to do a quick shoulder check.”

Jacob Morgan,