98. Learning about corporate governance can be embarrassing

SCRIPT One of the most amazing things about the governance world is that it’s filled with some of the smartest, most accomplished, most influential people anywhere in the world. For those of you who haven’t yet had the privilege of experiencing it, you can imagine that it’s a pretty exhilarating community to wander around. But there’s something tricky about it, too. Despite the proliferation of excellent governance education offerings out there, they are usually…let’s say “by the establishment, for the establishment.” So fundamentally there are a lot of assumptions baked in. Including that there’s a common understanding about what corporate governance is, and what a good director does, and how a board meeting works, and so on. So imagine yourself in this position: you’re decades into your career, you’re a big deal, you’ve just become CEO or board chair, and you’re getting ready for your first board meeting in one of those two big seats. And you’re not exactly sure what to do to make it amazing. Maybe you google it and find a bunch of checklists. Or maybe you take a course and get a bunch of binders and pithy anecdotes. But what you really want to know is “how in the world to I take this amazing group of brilliant people in the boardroom and get something really special out of them so that my organization is better tomorrow than it was yesterday?” Which is basically the same as asking “how do I do good governance?” Now that you’re picturing yourself in that situation, you can also imagine how embarrassing it might feel to call up a friend and say “I don’t know how to do this. Can you help?” Collectively, I think the best thing we can do to help is to destigmatize the question. Raise your hand if you feel even a little unclear about how to be amazing in a boardroom. I see you! My hand’s up, too.