An avalanche of useful material on AI

In the past couple of months, we seem to have been overrun with AI-related information. The US organisation National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) has created a suite of resources that covers a lot of ground. It includes:

1. Director Essentials: AI and Board Governance is a governance/ AI primer.
   It advocates for dedicated AI governance and the associated implications. It includes a basic outline of what AI is, covers risk and mitigation oversight and concludes with a useful checklist.
   
   
2. Board practices survey. Feedback from 328 directors that pick up AI but also interesting perspectives on ESG, climate, human capital and board culture. For us a few interesting points on board culture, notably:
   
   
   • Barriers to board culture: 50% cited a lack of time together outside formal meetings and 30% cited problem directors.
     
     
   • Impact of virtual meetings: 30% said they had improved meeting efficiency, 28% said more frequent meetings had improved information flow, but 26% noted the lack of in-person connection had diminished board collegiality.
     
     
3. The Director’s Handbook on cyber-risk oversight contains a list of boardroom questions—15 on AI and ML (machine learning) and 14 on whether to use AI for cyber security.

In another significant resource on AI (How to boost your meeting PREP with AI), the Canadian company Director Prep has released Chat DPQ, a version (presumably) of ChatGPT aimed at assisting directors in preparing for meetings. The tool scans board packs and highlights key matters and research issues. As the company founder, Scott Baldwin, notes, however, the tool assists but does not absolve you of the need for critical thought:

As a board director, there’s no need to fear or avoid AI. It’s not going to replace you in the boardroom. Boards will continue to depend on human curiosity, courage and kindness. I think I can say with confidence that board members will be human for some time to come!

The critical moments after a virtual meeting

Reporting on research by Prof Leslie Perlow, Michael Blanding has drawn attention to the significance of what happens at the end of a virtual meeting. Virtual meetings have become the standard for global and hybrid team communication, and similarly for boards of enterprises with global reach, but what happens when the calls end?

Blanding highlights how weak communication and misunderstandings during virtual meetings can give way to resentment and rifts when the cameras turn off. Participants who are in the same room keep talking, but their interpretation may differ from those on the other end of the call. Perlow’s research demonstrates how the tone of those conversations can dramatically affect team dynamics over time. However, these problems aren’t inevitable. Perlow offers advice for improving remote teamwork with an emphasis on strong communication.

Four common biases in boardroom culture

Maria Castanon Moats, Paul DeNicola and Leah Malone explore what behavioural psychology can tell you about the human dynamics of your board.

In practice, no boardroom culture is perfect. At some time, most boards experience derailed discussions, dismissed opinions, side conversations, directors who dominate, and those who seem to be biting their tongues.

In the boardroom, the biases that help the brain order information, make decisions and influence the ways people judge themselves and others can cause people to over or undervalue others who sit around the table or the ideas they express. They can also influence collegiality, whether people feel ‘safe’ enough to speak out, and the ability to nurture diversity of thought.

The authors explain how four biases—authority bias, groupthink, status quo bias, and confirmation bias—create issues that may be holding boards back. Each has clear warning signs and equally clear techniques for combating its harmful effects.

Five ways executives can manage conflict with their board

Sabina Nawaz writes that some situations come packaged with contention no matter how averse we are to it. CEOs and their executive teams routinely tackle fraught situations, both external and internal. Ideally, executives have the support of their boards of directors and don’t have to face these challenges alone. However, the high stakes, strong wills and the personalities of successful, high-powered people—added to large helpings of uncertainty—ensure that challenges at this level are often accompanied by interpersonal conflict.

The backing of a board can help mobilise an organisation to achieve its most ambitious aspirations, but a significant divergence of vision and values may lead the board to stall progress on an organisation’s highest priorities—and even unseat a chief executive. It’s important, therefore, that senior executives learn how to navigate conflict with their boards. Nawaz proposes five strategies for doing this successfully.

Getting better at forward-thinking

In an era marked by unparalleled speed and deep-rooted uncertainty, the old assumption that the past informs the future no longer holds true. It is a concern that researchers see a general tendency by leaders to underestimate the influence of external trends on the future of their organisations. Added to this, the business implications of the current list of external trends cannot be considered in isolation, particularly over the long term. This list will continue to change, each trend presenting its own set of challenges and complexities

This environment requires boards to rethink aspects of their governance approach. In particular, the need to weave major global trends into their strategic thinking means that boards must adopt a more forward-looking mindset, but many boards are ill-prepared, both in terms of their skill sets and the traditional board agenda, to do this. In ‘Are Boards Forward-Thinking Enough in this Disruption Era?’, Ron Soonieus of INSEAD offers seven practical recommendations for recalibrating boards’ strategies and skill sets.