A birthday review
Sarah Cornally FAICD
Mastering the Boardroom is a unique opportunity for directors to consider what they need to do to move into the next level of mastery. Each of the facilitators is there to focus on how to enhance the learning experience for each person. When participants take full advantage of that opportunity they can reap huge dividends. Imagine having someone who is effectively a fly on the wall and completely committed to enabling you to improve your game. If you choose to involve them early in your learning objectives, they can leverage learning substantially.
As facilitators, we are non-judgmental observers. We see what is working, what is not and what someone could do differently to get a better result. One of the aspects of the program I enjoy the most is giving the participants feedback and ways to respond. Many people, even very seasoned directors, don’t know what their strengths are and how to use them optimally in the boardroom. Sometimes that lack of awareness and application produces frustrations. Unwittingly, they create limitations for themselves. When someone takes advantage of the feedback opportunities and then explores and embraces the learning, experimenting and applying it, you see them go ahead in leaps and strides. It builds their confidence and they get results immediately. It’s a very efficient way of improving capability and often it enhances their influence and the performance of colleagues.
I enjoy the dynamism of the program and the flexibility we have to enhance the program as it unfolds. It means we can pace the learning to be optimal for the group and inclusive of the individual. If something more challenging is required, we can insert it. If some particular content would be valuable, we can include it. We draw on the expertise and experience of the participants as well as the rich resource of the facilitators who all bring unique strengths to the program. Because it is constantly evolving, it is always contemporary. That keeps us thinking more deeply and learning as well. It embraces the real dynamics of a boardroom in that we all need to think together and we challenge each other to respond to the demands before us.
Andrew Donovan
Mastering the Boardroom builds on the existing technical base of directors to offer the promise of developing a unique artistic style and approach to directorship. A good director is indeed an artist, going beyond technical competency to create something of value.
It has been a privilege and pleasure to be a facilitator on the program over the years, seeing some great artists at work and observing others, newer to the craft, beginning to develop their own style. Mastering the Boardroom is a rarefied environment, conducive to exploring a director’s style, aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of questions such as: What is my unique style as a director? In what sort of board environments is my art most appreciated and valuable? What response (outcomes) does my art produce?
The program is also an incubator for the evolution of the directorial art form in Australia, encouraging challenge and questioning of the way we currently practice. I would wager that over the next 20 years, a great deal of those who come to the fore as directors known for their outstanding quality (on listed, private, government and not-for profit boards) will have been through Mastering the Boardroom, or is that “Artists in the Boardroom”?
Jane Walton
The gap between knowledge and practice is always an issue and nowhere more so than in being an effective member of a board. The complex interaction of individual and collective responsibility, the layers of individual feelings and the reactions people inevitably experience in a group work context often make a board a very difficult environment in which to work.
As an experiential program, Mastering the Boardroom delivers a whole new layer of learning to participants which we, as facilitators, can never really anticipate because it is determined by where people are at as individuals at the time. Our role is simply to go with that – to shape the environment as it unfolds for each board so that individuals are challenged to learn and grow as directors. A whole dynamic learning environment is created in which participants and facilitators are dealing with the results of the choices we are making, moment by moment. But unlike real life, we have the opportunity to stop, to reflect and to experiment with different ways of doing things, different ways of being and to experience the outcomes in a safe environment.
The learning is always dramatic and appears to be ongoing. My thoughts on this are that it is firstly, part of the growth in personal confidence that everyone talks of experiencing, in having grappled with difficult and complex circumstances and having been challenged to think deeply about important issues pertaining to the role of a director and of boards. Secondly, there is the individual mindfulness and self reflection that the program engenders.
Apart from the specific learning that participants take away with them on the essential areas of board work, such as strategic thinking, financial management, crisis management, ethical thinking skills and decision making processes, the habit of reflection seems to stick. Participants have increased consciousness of the relational dynamics emerging around them and the confidence to manage those relationships tactfully and effectively, and to speak up when they need to, something which most people, including directors, find very hard to do, but which is an essential part of being an effective director.
The next Mastering the Boardroom program will take place from 3 – 6 September 2008 in Victoria. For more information, visit the Education section of our website at: www.companydirectors.com.au