If we agree that the boardroom, and by extension, everything it entails is crucial to the success of any organisation, then it is only important that we build a healthy boardroom culture.
The boardroom comprises the major decision-makers in every corporate setting, from the CEO to the Chairman and other board members. A harmonious collaboration among these stakeholders is important to ensure board effectiveness and the organisation’s overall performance.
This article talks extensively about boardroom culture and how to establish one.
Boardroom Culture Demystified
Let’s begin by understanding what workplace culture is all about. Workplace culture is the way we do things around here. It encompasses every aspect of being part of a larger and common goal. Workplace culture also creates a feeling that impacts on performance, compliance, reputation, and staff engagement of any business.
Interestingly, the culture of any workplace starts from the boardroom. Therefore, the boardroom must develop and maintain a healthy boardroom, which will extend to every other arm of the business or organisation.
Creating high-performance boardroom culture
Several organisations spend much time thinking about the future, coming up with strategic plans in line with their long-term goals. However, little or no effort goes into internal assessment and, more importantly, the kind of corporate culture they have consciously or unconsciously created.
Every business must be intentional about creating excellent boardroom culture and by extension, workplace culture.
Leadership must reflect the workplace culture.
The board will only see the cultural traits they want in every part of their organisation if they embody these same traits. Essentially, they must be the ambassadors of the workplace culture. They must speak of values they represent, as this is the only way to establish a consistent culture across the board.
Trust is a vital ingredient of workplace culture.
It is common to see board members create positions of trust within the board. While this is important, extending it to the entire company is even more important. The culture adopted must encourage workers to put in their best at all times. When it comes to the board, board effectiveness requires trust – the trust to share information and ideas to create a friendly and transparent working environment.
Effective communication is key to boardroom culture.
The right boardroom culture must ensure communication with offices, units, or individuals across a company should be seamless for the people involved. Workplace culture can only thrive if the communication channels are reliable enough to get it across to everyone.
Mistrust may set in within and beyond the boardroom if communication is poor. You can quickly identify a troubled board when members fail to trust one another or individual capabilities to deliver on personal and collective goals.
But we cannot separate mistrust from poor communication. Except communication is transparent, it is only a matter of time before board members and stakeholders experience friction while carrying out their duties and responsibilities.
Consider other communication channels.
Technology has evolved, and we are now all used to emails and online correspondents instead of physical interactions. Creating the right boardroom culture requires a combination of both virtual and physical relations and interactions. Otherwise, feelings of isolation and mistrust may set in.
These arrangements ensure members of the board can trust each other and use this as a premise to achieving board effectiveness.
A culture of challenge is a healthy boardroom culture.
The key decision-makers in any corporate establishment must be open to ‘difficult’ questions from workers and other stakeholders. This is called the ‘culture of challenge’ and comprises four major elements: Processes, Structure, Alignment, and Shared Beliefs.
They are all interdependent, and if well harnessed, they can help create a self-sustaining culture of challenge that drives board effectiveness.
Developing a technical ability to challenge.
The board can help employees develop and nurture a technical ability to challenge. Contrary to first impressions, these challenges do not have to be disruptive. Instead, a systematic introduction of new challenges, especially in the digital and cybersecurity spaces, can be helpful to employees while positioning the board for improved performance.
Getting the vision right is crucial.
Our discussion so far has underlined the fact that developing and establishing a high-performance culture requires a few important prerequisites. One of these is having the right vision. When the vision is well structured and highly charged, it becomes easier to sell it to a dedicated team. However, more than imbibing a positive vision, a team must also b allowed to operate in a positive environment, where members can fully express their dedication and passion.
A Quick Recap…
So far, we have talked about various ways or methods of creating and maintaining a high-performance and healthy boardroom culture. But we can summarise all of these into three major actions.
First, the organisation, especially the board, must prioritise a strong feedback culture. The inputs of every member of an organisation, including stakeholders and employees, are crucial to achieving measurable improvement over time.
Second, an excellent review culture is needed to ensure board effectiveness. The best way to measure progress is to review performance consistently. From top to bottom, a motivated organisation must encourage employees to adopt a review culture that helps them track their performance and that of the organisation.
Lastly, every member of the team must develop a strong sense of self-awareness. It is essential to know their strengths and weaknesses and make a conscious decision to maximise them in the already-existing positive working environment. That way, an employee can enrich and empower themselves and others.
In Conclusion
The need for effective and high-performing boards is on the rise. There are various methods to achieve that, depending on the peculiarities of the situation. Interestingly, none of these methods is 100% right or wrong – every organisation must develop a tailored blueprint that works best for them.
Whatever your organisation’s blueprint for boarding effectiveness is, creating and maintaining an excellent workplace and boardroom culture must always take an integral position. This article has provided several heads-ups on how to get started. If properly implemented, the recommendations above will take your board to peak performance in no time.
