About
Twenty years ago Jim Brown put the word imperfect in the title of a governance book, which in 2006 was a brave thing to do. It became one of the few governance books people actually finish, because it is written as a story rather than a checklist. Last month he released the 20th Anniversary Edition, updated and expanded, with a foreword by Patrick Lencioni. In this GBI Fireside Chat, our Founder and Executive Chairman, Wassim Karkabi, sits down with Jim for an honest conversation about what makes a board member effective, what twenty years changed, and what every director can do differently the next morning.
No slides and no presentation. Thirty minutes of conversation and fifteen minutes of your questions. Jim has spent more than thirty years working with chief executives, executive teams and boards, and is the founder of OrgHealth.
Across the hour, Wassim and Jim will explore four themes chosen for their direct value to working and aspiring directors:
- Why imperfect, and why it is harder in our part of the world. Embracing imperfection is not a licence to be sloppy, it is a licence to be human. What that means at a board table where hierarchy is strong and nobody speaks after the chief executive does.
- The meeting after the meeting. The parking-lot test, why capable directors save the real conversation for the car park, and what a chair can change at the start of the next agenda rather than over the next year.
- The seven disciplines, with pressure on two. A fast tour of the framework, then depth on Direct and on Select, which is where most boards are weakest, including the conversation nobody starts about a director who is not contributing.
- What is new in this edition. The shifts of the last twenty years, the chapters on culture and on the chair, and what Jim changed his mind about.
There will also be time for live questions from the audience.
What you will take away
- A way to raise what you do not know at a board table without losing the authority your board expects you to carry
- Two simple interventions a chair can run in the next meeting to get the car-park conversation into the room
- A clear view of the two disciplines where boards most often fall short, and the first conversation to have about each
- A practical read on what has genuinely changed in board effectiveness over twenty years, and what has not
