Thursday lunch.  My friend Len and I are sharing our thoughts and experiences about working at board level with client organisations.  What are the secrets that reveal themselves as the layers slowly peel away?  Even as I write I find myself scanning so many experiences – of directors who are afraid to give feedback to their CEO about behaviours which limit the effectiveness of the board, of CEOs who were good before circumstances changed and are unable to change to meet the needs of the circumstances, of individuals quietly sidelined in a conspiracy of silence by men and women who don’t want to address the issue of board level incompetence, of people who, at root, know this role is not for them and yet who dare not admit it for fear of the implications of seeing what they know to be true.

Len loves helping senior leaders to engage with problems and issues that look insurmountable.  I love helping senior leaders to improve the bottom line whilst nurturing and maintaining a healthy ecology – personal, team, organisational.  Boardrooms fascinate us both – because (for Len) so many problems look insurmountable which actually are not, because (for me) so often the barrier to improving bottom line results is the ability of individuals to engage with themselves and with each other in ways which make things happen.

In the end, so many of the secrets of the boardroom are human secrets – including the secrets that board members hide from themselves.  When did we tell ourselves that it’s somehow desirable to be anything other than human in the boardroom?  This is not, after all, a fate we can escape.  Addressing challenges in the boardroom involves engaging in a level of dialogue with ourselves and each other that is uncommon in our culture and, at the same time, a pre-requisite of outstanding leadership at board level.  Perhaps, though, this is a subject for another day.