How the Best Boards and Best Directors Operate
October 04, 2012
Sitting on the board of a Fortune 500 company, or any large organization, is a great responsibility. Personally, I've learned a tremendous amount in the nearly one year since I was appointed to the Starbucks board of directors.
Having learned so much, I was delighted to be able discuss best practices for boards and directors at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in Laguna Niguel, CA earlier this week.
With insights from Carol Bartz (former CEO of Yahoo! and before that CEO of Autodesk, now director on several boards including Cisco) and Anne Mulcahy (former CEO of Xerox, now Chairman of the Board of Save the Children and board director at Johnson & Johnson, Target, Washington Post, etc.), and moderated by the talented Carol Loomis, we had a great discussion about how the best public boards and companies operate.
In a nutshell:
- Directors have the courage and culture to constructively disagree with one another and with management without anyone taking it personally.
- There is ample diversity of backgrounds and opinions on board to carefully consider all options and angles in the case of important decisions. The board is large and diverse enough to encompass the full breadth of the corporation’s businesses, market segments, and geographies, but not so large that it becomes unwieldy or clumsy.
- Greater care and consideration should be given during both the director selection and onboarding process. Board members need to remain committed to continual learning, preparation, and relationship-building with other board members and management.
All in all, the Fortune Summit was fantastically run, thanks in large part to conference organizers Pattie Sellers and Stephanie Mehta. To read more about my experience at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, head over to the Hearsay Social Blog.
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