The Rest is Work (Trailer)

Why many problems at work and in organisations are caused by the absence of a purpose shared by all of its directors.

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Fantasy letter to a Chair from a board evaluator: Dear Chair, While I’m sure you will find a way of asserting in next year’s annual report, as you did last year, that your Board complies with FRC/QCA/Wates codes and principles I feel I should draw your attention to the following seven statements by members of your board made during the course of my evaluation:

In an ideal world, boards should focus on fixing the matters arising from their board evaluations. They don’t because the purpose of board evaluations of many boards, despite pleas by regulators, is to tick boxes for annual reports and/or to use them as sticks to beat colleagues. Even organisations who pride themselves on carrying out rigorous board evaluations including on behaviour issues can miss important systemic weaknesses because of the key limitation of written board evaluations: fear of writing down, for example, the belief by most directors that the CEO, CXO or Chair is a narcissistic bully who brooks no challenge. Delete as appropriate. The collapse of Carillion is a chilling example of the limitations of written evaluations. Its annual report in 2016 noted that its board evaluation had “confirmed that the board, each of its committees and directors continue to be highly effective’.

My Mum is 90 today. She was born on 22nd September 1930. The Irish Times that day reported widespread gales, a tramcar accident in Dublin and the activities of a man called Hitler. Mum was nine at the outbreak of World War II, a teenager at a boarding school in the forties, married in the early fifties and had seven children by the early sixties of which I was the sixth. She ran two small businesses in her lifetime. Her husband, our father, died over 34 years ago. Her daughter, our sister, died aged 57. She lived a full life against a backdrop of global and local socio-economic change the pace of which was unprecedented. As soon as I came of age, and over the years since, I noticed one consistent pattern in her behaviour: "Mind-ful-ness"