Category Archives: Diversity

More women on boards needs action not just discussion

pouring coffee It was great to see 24 female board directors in Singapore recognised recently at the Singapore Institute of Directors and BoardAgender‘s launch of “Women on Board: Making a Real Difference”. However, there’s still a way to go. There are lots of things that can help move the dial to increase the number of women on boards. Here are three actions that can be taken:

· According to Simon Israel, Chairman of SingTel and Singapore Post, “men need to get the religion” and understand that good governance, including diversity, is good for business and for value creation. With 27 of the top listed 100 Singapore companies not having a woman on board – it is the men on these boards that needed to be in the room today and they need to keep hearing it from their fellow male directors. Male champions need to speak to their fellow men.

· Professor Lawrence Loh of National University of Singapore pointed out in his summary of the ASEAN Corporate Governance scorecard, that the longer the tenure of independent directors on a board, the less female directors there were on that board. The implementation of capped maximum tenures would not just make more spots available for women, it would ensure companies’ boards are refreshed with new perspectives and adapt to the changing external environment.

· The myth of there not being sufficient capable women to serve on boards should be dispelled with SID Chairman Willie Cheng pointing out that there are more female members of SID than there are SGX listed boards without women. Female directors need to introduce other female directors to share and increase the roles (where 3 women on a board is an ideal number). Men and women all need to be aware of their unconscious biases and focus on skills and capabilities rather than expectations based on past experiences.

There’s definitely a change in the wind – but it will need action rather than just words for the change to take hold.

Coffee count: 611 coffees

Advice, mentors & gut instinct

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3 kinds coffee One of the initial reasons for starting this blog was to share the advice that I received during my various coffee meetings on the road to becoming a non-exec director. Having moved to Singapore only in the last six months, I am still very much in the mode of learning about the way things work here, who’s who, who’s doing what work and how to go about things.

Everyone I have had coffee with has been exceptionally friendly and giving (thank you again, if you are reading this). I suspect that in part, this comes from the fact that for many people, Singapore is not their original home, and they may remember what it was like to arrive here and start from scratch. Notably, there have also been a number of people who have been especially helpful with introductions and suggestions and very direct feedback. This is significant in a society where speaking directly is not always an acceptable way of communicating!

In the process of these coffee meetings, as the new person I am often effectively “pitching” myself and my skills as well as asking questions about whom to speak with, what to join and where I can try to be of value. In some cases, I have been honoured to be able to also provide advice to others who are at different stages of their careers. A recent range of responses to a particular question I posed made me reflect on both my reaction to the answers I was given and the way in which I ask questions and provide advice.

Often the discussion I have with my coffee partner develops organically and there isn’t necessarily a defined set of questions. But recently, I put the same direct question to three different coffee partners – all of whom have lived here for more than a decade. The answers I received were “yes, definitely”, “no, don’t bother” and “probably, there’s no harm”. Now it’s fair to say I am not seeking medical advice from specialists, so there are no life and death consequences from having such conflicting advice. But it does make it a little bit more difficult to work out what line of action to take when one has such a range of responses.

As I reflected on this divergence of opinions, I realised that each person was giving me their view, no doubt, informed by their own past experiences and current context. The trick for me was to try not to take their response at face value, but to colour it with my knowledge of their experience and context to find its applicability to me.

This led me to the notion of ‘gut instinct’. Prior to asking the particular question, I had my own view, also informed by my past experience and current circumstances. The point of seeking others’ advice was to learn what I didn’t know about my new environment to better inform my own view. The reality is that each person has a unique combination of experience, history and context. The key was to listen to the advice, try to ascertain what influenced or gave rise to that advice and then disseminate it with my own circumstances. This is where the process of rationalisation should result in you establishing what will work best for you; what makes sense in your situation. This will generally lead you to a view that fits with your ‘gut instinct’, your intuition about yourself.

Given the conflicting advice, depending on which action I take, it will go against the advice provided by at least one of my coffee partners. The key to realise is that it doesn’t mean that everything they suggested is not applicable, nor that their advice was any less helpful. In fact, having someone suggest something that goes counter to your own leanings is incredibly useful to force you to think about why you may have wanted to take a particular action. It is the same as the different perspective that comes from having a diverse team at board or executive level that helps ensure that groupthink doesn’t result in taking a course of action because everyone thinks the same way.

Similarly, those who impart advice or who have the privilege to mentor others, need to remember that such advice needs to be provided with context and experience. Mentors often will ask questions rather than offer direct advice, and those questions also need to be posed in a way that makes the other person assess their own circumstances with an insight into others’ experiences and the applicability or not of those experiences to their own position. This, in turn, should allow the mentee the ability to consider different actions and their implications and what ultimately may work for them, based on their own understanding of themselves, their gut instinct.

Coffee count: 424

Best for shareholders, best for directors

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During my recent coffee meetings and International Women’s Day events, there has been considerable discussion around the recognition of the need for more diversity around the board table. While gender is one of the areas of diversity, particularly here in Asia there is a growing call for diversity of age, background and skills as well.
Everyone knows that a greater diversity of directors is likely to lead to less risk of “groupthink”. Evidence is regularly quoted that greater diversity leads to improved company results, improved risk assessment, greater creativity and innovation. And yet, while change is happening, it is often seen to be happening at a very slow pace.

In my consulting practice, I have come to recognise that when decisions are made, facts and evidence can often be overridden by emotional or psychological factors. When we look at why certain decisions were made, we are not be able to see what was in someone’s head, but we if we look hard enough at their behaviour, it can give us an indication of what they might have been thinking. Applying this technique to the boards that are slow to bring more diversity to their members, I have come to wonder whether fear and defensiveness may be factors.

New directors who are different will bring different perspectives. There is a good chance they will ask questions that may not have been asked before or raise issues that may not have been considered before. This is where the benefits arise. However, asking questions about the past may make the directors who have been sitting around the table feel vulnerable or defensive. They may believe they should have considered these things and didn’t. However, one’s own perspectives are informed by one’s own experiences and knowledge – no individual can think of everything. In terms of the past, hindsight is a gift. It makes things clearer for all and directors need to ask themselves whether they did the best they could at the time with the information they had.

Directors of a board are there to serve the best interests of the company and its shareholders. The best way to serve shareholders is to seek to continuously improve. Shareholders are not going to mark a company down for changing course as a result of new perspectives raised or different questions asked around the board table. If new directors have brought a fresh way of thinking that drives a better way, shareholders will value this. They are going to worry less about the past if broader perspectives are considered in the present and future. Conversely, shareholders are not going to believe their interests are being served if a board isn’t prepared to adapt to new environments, to change and to embrace the possibilities of new perspectives.

Rather than taking a defensive mindset, directors on boards who are grappling with task of becoming more diverse should consider the benefits for themselves as well – given that self-interest is often a great motivator. A new director who looks at things differently and asks questions from a different angle may assist existing directors to broaden their own perspectives, allowing them to take these new views and apply them elsewhere. No better example of this could be the Male Champions of Change, many of whom are quick to say they did not see the benefits of diversity in their own businesses until they were engaged in the program and put greater diversity into practice in their own companies.

Ultimately, bringing in new directors who vary from the existing group of directors through gender, race, skills, industry or experience should benefit not only the company they serve, but the shareholders of the company and the directors themselves. Perhaps this perspective can help quicken the pace of change.

Coffee count: 408

When life gets in the way

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Almost seven months since the last entry. My apologies to anyone who follows this blog and expected regular entries! The title of this post gives some explanation for my absence. The past few months have been challenging for many reasons including time allocation, and unfortunately, keeping up the blog has been one of the things to lapse, along with time for social coffees!

My role as chairman of the board has continued apace, with plenty of change management issues arising both around the board table and within the business. It really has been a lesson in the effectiveness of a collaborative approach. While each new issue arose through a phone call or email to me, it has been satisfying that the resolution has always been arrived at through working with others around the table, sharing ideas and having the opportunity to offer alternative ideas. Influence and persuasion are key skills, but one can’t use persuasion without reason, listening to and acknowledging others’ concerns and, where possible, finding ways to accommodate other points of view.

The not-for-profit board role that I continue to have a passion for, have also continued with their usual ebbs and flows – nothing for a period and then a surge. Similarly, my corporate consulting practice has had its moments of intensity. At the same time, I have started to seek to establish networks for my Asian sojourn. The Asialink Leaders Program has provided insights, knowledge and perspectives that have challenged my own perceptions. This was why I undertook the course, so the learnings are welcome as are the opportunities to meet other people engaged in building working relationships with people and organisations throughout Asia.

I have also visited Singapore a few times and begun the “coffee networking” process there. People have been welcoming and positive and I am grateful to those who have willingly introduced me to others. The ‘six degrees of separation’ adage has proved to be even closer at times, and there will many connections to be made. How many will eventually lead to the growth in my non-executive director portfolio is yet to be seen, but I will persist.

While all this continues, the realities of domestic life have had to be dealt with. Three children (one living away from home at university, one in her final year at school with a load of extra-curricular activities as well, and one dealing with the prospect of moving schools and countries at the end of the year) require time and focus. At the other end of the age spectrum are parents with significant health issues: hospitals, specialists, care at home – all to be dealt with. Not to mention the process of planning an international move, selling the family home and so on.

It has been a juggling process and I am grateful to not have had a full-time role but rather the flexibility to be able to manage – provided I don’t count on much sleep! However, I have found an appreciation for the sentiments expressed in Anne-Marie Slaughter’s new book “Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family”. You may recall that she was a director in the US State Department who left her job to spend more time with her two teenage sons. In her new book, she notes “we often cannot control the fate or our career and family”. She goes on to say that the one of the reasons women struggle in the workplace is a systematic imbalance in the esteem granted to “two complementary human drives: competition, the impulse to purse our self-interest in a world in which others are pursuing theirs, and care, the impulse to put other first.” There will always be times that the drive to care will override the drive to compete – but companies must be able to develop policies that accommodate this. There does seem to be a start in Australian business, particularly encouraged by the Male Champions of Change process, but there’s a long way to go.

Nevertheless, the 1000 coffees process has continued and I am back on track – focusing on the changes that lie ahead as well as reflecting on the lessons learned from the roles that now approach their conclusion. Hopefully I will be able to share some of the outputs.

Coffee count: 385

The balancing act

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One of the things I have learnt over the years is that you never know who you are going to learn something from and when. I have had the pleasure in the last few weeks of meeting with two formidable young professional women in a mentoring capacity. I found our conversations enlightening and informative.

By co-incidence, both women are recently married, both to successful young men who are doing well in their chosen areas. I was shocked to hear from both, quite separately, of the number of people who were asking them, when they were going to have children. Not just friends, but work associates as well. In today’s modern world, where people often enter into major events such as mortgages and parenthood without feeling the need to get married, why should marriage imply that parenthood swiftly follows?

Even more indignantly, why do people feel that they have the right to ask such personal questions? A million years ago, when I was asked the same question by my parents (only after I had been married a few years I might add), I made it clear it was none of their business. How much more so when the people asking the question are friends or work colleagues or supervisors? I did take a moment to wonder whether, in this world where Facebook and Instagram provide us with so many “friends” as well as a forum to share so much of our lives, these two things are colliding in a way that allow people to feel they can ask such personal questions.

But I digress. What was concerning to me was the questions both these women asked of me in relation to balancing work and parenthood. We are decades on from the start of women’s lib movement and pushing equality in the workplace. We’ve had a female Prime Minister (albeit one who wasn’t married and didn’t have children), a female Governor-General (who managed both) and currently have two female State Governors, a Territorial Administrator and a female Foreign Minister. We have a raft of successful female businesswomen, lawyers, doctors, directors, politicians and so on. Almost twenty years ago when I was considering having children, it didn’t occur to me that I wasn’t going to be able to continue to pursue my career. In fact, once I had the complicating factor of a second child I chose to leave the stability of tax law and pursue an entrepreneurial career.

I couldn’t have done it without the support of my husband and the fabulous assistance of a live-in nanny (which for the record was cheaper than any other form of paid-for childcare)*. In fact, part of my advice to both these women was that in any relationship there has to be an understanding and acknowledgement of both careers and the fact that there will be times when one career needs more effort and work and the other person may need to keep their career in a holding pattern as support. Trying to push two careers at the same time can be truly difficult – the added complication of children can make it even more complex. Another aspect of advice was not to try to be all things to all people all the time.

The demands of work in this era of 24/7 make the desire to balance all of these things even more acute. Shortly after the second of these meetings, it was announced that Cameron Clyne, CEO of National Australia Bank, was going to step down due to the demands of his job taking him away from his family too much. There is no doubt that being the CEO of one of the top 20 banks in the world and the top four in Australia must be a demanding role. But what hope do young women have to aspire to the top, to “lean in” as Sheryl Sandberg would have them do, if one of the blokes can’t do it either?

Just to make it harder, CEOs are continually encouraged to set an example for their staff in having work-life balance and benchmarked against their peers. They need to be seen attending school functions (by their kids as well as the broader market) as well as fronting the media and analysts when required. How do we balance the wonders of 21^st century technology when information is, and always expected to be, at our fingertips all the time, yet we need time to still be face to face with the people who matter to us (meaning our partners, children and parents, not analysts and shareholder activists)!

When one reflects on all of this, it’s probably not all that surprising that so many talented women have chosen not to engage in the battle and rather cede the opportunities to others who aren’t as worried about ensuring they understand playground dynamics at the same time as commodity price dynamics.

There are so many different things at play: biological disposition; technological advances and society’s behaviour as a result; the competing demands of investors and analysts; personal family circumstances; physical and intellectual attributes. There is also no right answer. Equally there is no wrong answer. Awareness, understanding, consideration and support are what are called for. What and when each person decides to do with their personal and professional lives is their own business. Our role as a society is to enable each person to fulfil their own hopes and dreams without making it harder.

Coffee count: 275 coffees

* Watch out for a future post on the arguments for greater support for childcare rather than paid parental leave.

The box conundrum

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This past week I met with the chairman of a number of listed and unlisted boards and who has over 20 years of board experience. Introduced by a friend of mine who happens to be an executive member of one of those boards, he was aware that I was finding the process of building a portfolio of non-executive directorships harder than expected. This chairman is a willing mentor of women (and men) and has been a mentor in the AICD Chairmen’s Mentoring Program three times.

He told me that most of the people he meets with have been in a role or an industry for many years and have deep experience. Often they have been lawyers or consultants. They fit squarely in a particular box and in order to be attractive for board roles, they need to widen their experience and skill set. However, in my case, the chairman noted, I have had a broad range of experiences that have utilised a broad range of skills and I don’t seem to have a particular box to fit in! The problem with this, the chairman went on to say, is that people don’t know what I am good at. Generalists are not sought out anymore, people with particular skills or industry knowledge are.

Without trying to sound too frustrated, I pointed out to the chairman that rather than having stayed in one role for 25 years, I had chosen to try a few different roles and enhance a range of skills. However, I did feel there was a consistency across all my roles that focused on “top line revenue generation”. In other words, helping a business grow. Not unlike another senior board director I had spoken with, he noted that this was quite an executive trait. “You could be fielding calls from head-hunters for CEO roles,” he said. “I am” I replied. But surely a board needs people who understand the skills required for a business to grow and can ask and challenge the executives? That theory applies after all to industry knowledge, to financial management, to risk, and so on. After all, the 2014 AICD Conference later this month is all about growth.

I have to confess that following the meeting my mood was quite sombre for a while. Too much a generalist, not enough experience in big companies, no specific industry experience… It’s going to keep on being tough. Then I refocused and decided one meeting doesn’t determine my direction or my outcomes. It’s has to be about taking in the information and assimilating it with all the other information and advice. I could assure the chairman that I had spoken to most of the head-hunters in town, I had tried the government approach (admittedly with little successful penetration to date) and I was doing the networking. I am sitting on boards now and I know I am being effective. I also intuitively believe that working in a small or medium size business means one learns a lot more about business than working in one or two areas of a larger business (although I did work for an organisation that had 90,000 employees…).

The chairman did say that so often it is about serendipity and the planets being in alignment. I can’t help but think that the 1000 coffees along the way may assist the circumstances that eventuate in the “fortuitous happenstance”.

Coffee count: 253 coffees

Postscript: Following my last post, it may not surprise anyone that there hasn’t been a rash of offers from head-hunters or recruiters signing up to follow this blog. But I did have a call regarding a CEO role…..

Headhunters – respondents, facilitators or change agents?

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A couple of weeks ago the Australian Financial Review had an article that included an expressed frustration by shareholders of the approach major executive recruitment firms (I’m going to call them “headhunters” for readers’ ease) take to recruiting non-executive directors for boards. The claim was made that headhunters like to play it safe and thus boards end up with the same names put forward, it not being in the headhunters’ interests to try to place someone on an ASX board that has not been on one before.

I have previously discussed in elsewhere in this blog the catch-22 that exists for aspiring non-executive directors in relation to prior experience. It was somehow heartening to read of the same in the pages of the newspaper.

In a best case scenario, a board seeking a new director (whether an ASX100 company or not) would have done a skills matrix of its existing directors, considered their tenures to date and future plans and accordingly, developed a brief for a headhunter to fulfil its succession planning requirements. The existing directors are likely to also apply their minds as to whom they know who might fulfil the requirements. Both groups will cast around amongst the people they know.

Director appointments are going to come either through a headhunter or one’s network. In the case of larger companies, it’s just as likely to be a combination of both, with one’s name needing to be on both lists. So aspirants have to keep meeting with headhunters as well as networking.

Of my 223 coffees to date, 19 of them have been with headhunters and there would be another few to whom I’ve been introduced but who haven’t met with me. They range from the blue-chip international firms to the sole operators. All have been polite and friendly. Only two have met with me a second time (across a two year period). Walking away from most, I’ve had the feeling that I wasn’t going to be on any of their lists any time soon.

I understand that from the headhunters’ perspective, they have a brief from the board or nominations committee and they need to fill it. I also appreciate that they need to earn a living and they do that by providing a service that their clients want. This is most easily achieved by putting forward a round peg for the proffered round hole. However, I’m going to go out on a limb (perhaps not for the first time) and challenge headhunters to consider encouraging their clients to look at whether in fact a not-round peg might also fit in that round hole. After all, Henry Ford’s potential customers thought they wanted faster horses but he gave them a car and Steve Jobs probably wouldn’t have developed the iPad if he had listened to those people saying they wanted a netbook to replace the laptop.

The need for diversity on boards is not just about reworking the gender balance. It’s about bringing fresh ideas and new perspectives to the board table. It’s about bringing people with experience in other industries who have the skills to translate the knowledge learned elsewhere into insights in a complementary or similar industry. Headhunters have a potentially fantastic opportunity to meet a variety of new people and with the real understanding of their clients needs’, persuade their clients to not just recruit more people like themselves, but rather, take the plunge into the area of diversity in a meaningful way.

Surely in this fast changing world, where technology drives so much, where globalisation breaks down international borders more easily and where the younger generation consume so much more than previous generations (both in terms of tangible goods and intangible information), boards and chairmen need people around the table who understand these influences. Today’s experts in social media are unlikely to have had ASX100 board experience. But it doesn’t mean that they lack governance skills and the difference between setting strategy and implementing it. And even if the newest member of the board doesn’t have the same depth of governance experience, then that is why there is a skills matrix so that others cover it and directors can cross-pollinate their experiences.

My hope is that both the headhunters and the boards who speak of diversity open their thinking to looking for aspiring directors who can assimilate current business challenges and synthesise them with an understanding of experiences elsewhere. Such people will bring insight and value to board discussions and deliberations.

And perhaps rather than just responding to standard briefs, headhunters should see themselves as agents of change and help Australian corporate boards become the new model for diversity, good governance and foresight.

Coffee count: 223

Lean In and Lean On

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One of the most talked about books in the area of Diversity in 2013 has been Sheryl Sandberg’s book, Lean In. In it, she encourages women to “step up” and not fall back into the common and usual female traits of letting our actions speak for us, and waiting for others to be our promoters. In many ways, I wish someone had given me such a book when I was starting my career. It would have served me well to know it was OK to speak out or speak up. I have recommended it to many young women this year.

It should be said, however, that clearly there are women speaking up and “leaning in” or women wouldn’t have made the advances that they have to date. The trailblazers did lean in and showed that it can be done. At the same time, as Elizabeth Broderick is showing with her Male Champions of Change, it can’t all be done by women either. Men need to help change the status quo and encourage and allow women to lean in.

While on the whole I do endorse Sheryl Sandberg’s exhortations and encouragement, there is one aspect of her own experiences that facilitated her career yet is not necessarily available for all women. For those who choose to have children, managing a career and raising a family is a challenge. This is true for men and women, but I’d venture to say it’s tougher for women. It is difficult to move full-steam ahead on all fronts at the same time. Some, like Sandberg, are lucky enough to have spouses or partners who can manage their jobs or careers to allow the mother to work – whether it is a combination of sharing the load or staying at home. Other women can outsource to family or paid help – whether childcare centres or nannies. Each should feel they can do what is right for them and not feel judged or criticised by others who may have made different choices.

But inevitably, children do grow up into young people and parents can’t outsource the necessity of instilling their own values into their children and guiding and supporting them. Children are not commodities – just to have and then move on – they require parental input and to that extent managing two big careers and bringing up children is a tremendous challenge.

To do so, inevitably one has to lean on others. Be it wider family members, one of the parents in a relationship taking a greater support role or a circle of friends (or all of the above). Women very often think they have to do it themselves and be tough and manage it all. Women juggle multiple roles and fill up all available hours doing all the things that need to be done in order to keep moving forward and keep all the balls in the air. Recent experiences of family issues and personal health have reminded me that there is a circle of friends that I can lean on, just as many of them have leant on me from time to time. Without the ability to lean on, it can be tough to lean in.

This blog entry is dedicated to the circle of women, friends and mentors, whom I have been able to lean on. Thank you for being a support.

Coffee count: 212

Managing Expectations

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You’d think, given the title of this blog (1000 coffees), I might have managed my own expectations in the quest for a non-executive directorship portfolio. But as with most things in life, there are ups and downs and times when things look like they’re going well, and times when, frankly, they don’t.

As would be the case with many people in my position, when I meet with people in the context of seeking a non-executive director role, I am regularly reassured that I have the attributes boards are looking for, having run companies and been responsible for a P&L as well as having the appropriate financial and legal skills. I can tick all the boxes of things one should do: do the AICD course, focus on a particular sector, target not-for-profits and government as well, network with the people I’ve worked with before, and so on. However, it’s not a science. There is an element of timing, luck, synchronicity that plays a part too.

There are a lot of very capable people out there, looking to do the same thing. I had coffee with a gentleman a few weeks’ ago who told me of numerous occasions where he was “this close” and something happened for him not to get the role, whether it’s a deal falling apart, a change in focus, someone having just something else, or the inevitable “someone just knew someone else better”.

It can be disheartening, but it can’t be the end of the road. Recently I was approached and asked if I’d like to be considered for a non-executive directorship of a mid-level ASX listed company. In theory, I had all the requisite skills that the board were seeking given the company’s current state of business and the sector it was in, with one exception. I didn’t have listed company experience. I put forward all the reasons why I believed I could add value to the board and the company, but the feedback I received was that it was the lack of listed experience that didn’t get me onto the shortlist.

A recent conversation with someone at the AICD indicated that the Chairman’s Mentoring Program is really for people who are ready to step up to ASX200 listed boards. Given that this is not in any of their PR around the program, I responded that perhaps they should manage the expectations of the applicants better….

It all just confirms that despite the talk about the need for diversity in gender, skills, background and approach, most non-executive directorships are going to come through sponsors, mentors or recommendations. As one person said over coffee recently, it’s going to come from someone who is prepared to “stick his or her neck out and feel the breeze”. And the planets being in alignment.

Coffee count: 200

Good time for women

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After my blog a few weeks ago noting how difficult it is to get into government, I thought I should give credit where it’s due.

Anyone interested in the non-executive director (NED) space would be aware of the discussion about women on boards in the past few years. The discussion has covered the gamut of topics, from the fact there are not enough women on boards, why this is so, how to improve this situation, that companies with more women on their boards do better, and consequently what a good time it is for women who are seeking board roles. Plenty of talk, real change is taking longer….

There are lots and lots of very qualified women looking for board roles. I’ve met many of them and everyone I meet tells me that too. While there aren’t lots of female ex-C-suite executives to fill board vacancies, it would not be unreasonable to suggest that there are many women seeking board positions who are better qualified for a NED role than some existing male NEDs. As this blog canvasses, there are lots of reasons why it’s hard for women to break through into the network and there are lots of lessons we are learning in the process. But despite the fact there is both a supposedly strong demand and certainly a plentiful supply, that first board role is still elusive for many women.

Last year, the Federal Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Senator Penny Wong, announced the BoardLinks initiative, directly aimed at providing “more opportunities for women to be appointed to their first board, to launch and further their directorship careers” and to meet the Australian Government’s own target of having 40% women on Government boards. It was very gratifying that someone in a position of influence understood the “first board barrier” and sought to do something about it!! At this point, BoardLinks has operated to provide a database of appropriately qualified women to Government organisations, which at least makes the organisations aware of potential candidates who are women who might not otherwise be seen through networks or recruiter introductions. So far so good. However it’s still a passive process from the relevant women’s perspective. Hopefully there is more to come.

Now the Federal Government has launched a new website called Australian Government Boards which contains information “relating to more than 450 Australian Government boards and bodies across government, including a description of each board and its function, positions and appointments and term expiry dates” (http://www.ausgovboards.gov.au/). This site provides a single location to make an active search and campaign for a government board much simpler and more transparent. Anyone can now find out easily what boards there are, who is on the board, where there might be opportunities and when and work out how to make an approach. This is definitely a step in the right direction and should be applauded by all those who have had the advice “try and get on a government board”!

I do suspect this information might result in a few more coffees for me…..

Coffee count: 160

The experience conundrum

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The experience conundrum is two-fold. The first relates to the desire of boards to have non-executive directors with experience. Understandably, companies want their boards to function well and the directors need to know that each of them sitting around the table understands what their role is in terms of governance, oversight and decision-making. However, boards need to continually refresh and the wider community want to improve diversity. How do you find new directors if they need to have experience? Did the first ever director have experience? It’s a little like the sign in the window of one of my local cafés: “Junior waitress wanted. Experience required”!!

Governance experience can be gained from working with not-for-profit organisations such as charities, school boards and sporting organisations. An understanding of governance and the decision-making process can also be gained by executives who report to boards or attend board meetings or board sub-committee meetings. The AICD runs an excellent course that all aspiring non-executive directors are encouraged to attend. If the knowledge gained there is not considered sufficient, then what does that say about the value of the course? And if all of that isn’t enough for a new director, couldn’t a chairman or existing experienced NED take the new NED “under their wing” for a while and mentor and them and pass on their wisdom and learnings from their own experiences?

The other experience conundrum is in relation to industry experience. A chairman putting a new board together told me that I wasn’t appropriate because I didn’t have experience in the particular industry that group operated within. Diversity doesn’t just come from a mix of genders. It comes from a mix of perspectives, which may derive from different genders, different ages and different industries. Very few businesses could say that their industry is so specific that they could not benefit from experience gained in a different industry, tackling similar issues. There are a huge range of industries where focusing on customer/client needs is critical, including retail, manufacturing, services etc. Similarly, there are a range of businesses where understanding capital-intensive assets is vital – it’s not just in mining and resources. Bringing a perspective from a different industry and from different experience will help reduce the risk of “group think” and sometimes lead to thinking about a mature business in a fresh way.

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