Boardroom Engagement — Part 2 (Know your jumping-in point)

In my first post on this topic, Boardroom Engagement — Part 1, I discussed the importance of transparency when interacting with a Board.

My second thought was cemented by a discussion at a cyber security conference which centred around how security professionals should attempt to raise awareness and engagement of their agenda with the Board. The answer for me, in part at least, and perhaps a little controversially, centres around the membership of the Board itself.

Take a step back, over the last hundred years or so the skills and capabilities required of a Board have remained largely the same. Commercial and Financial acumen are highly valued, alongside an awareness of the Law and a deep understanding of Risk. While the advent of technology has clearly changed the nature of business, it hasn’t, in my view, been essential for Boards to have specific technology representation, until now. The combination of revolutionary new technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, and increasing security threats resulting from (at least in part) global instabilities, is changing the capabilities required in the Boardroom, in my view. Yet, in my experience, people rarely think about the fact that they can request and/or influence the makeup of a Board.

Technology innovations, data and security are hot topics and ones that look unlikely to go away anytime soon. Approaches to Corporate Governance vary from one organisation to the next but there will be channels, even if you have to go straight to the Chair and ask for a seasoned CTO to be added to the governance function. It’s far easier to say ‘change the Board’ than do it in practice, of course, but the potential for change is there.

After all, it’s now critical for a Board to have some degree of understanding of Product and Technology topics and the implementation implications surrounding them in order to have meaningful conversations about the balance of a company’s investments. The costs a business faces have changed, or should have changed, to reflect this underlying change in opportunity and risk.

I acknowledge I’m biased, but I believe technology needs to be represented by someone with a Product Engineering background. Someone who understands multiple stakeholders and covers new product development as well as topics such as emerging technologies. It’s a broader and much more difficult skill set to hire for but worth its weight in gold (which, unless you get lucky, is quite possibly what it will actually cost you).

All of this sets up the Product or Technology professional to know where, or rather who, their jumping-in point will be.

Who’s your ally, or whose ear do you have prior to the Board meetings that can help surface your important points, influence the conversation and be your advocate?

Without this person, you’re unlikely to gain long-term traction for your initiatives. It’s possible some of this can be achieved with a campaign of education, but that can be a significant investment of time that still may not resonate in a truly fundamental way and take effort that you may not have the capacity for.

So in summary, my second consideration when interacting with a Boardroom is to influence the governance to have the right people in the room in the first place and to clearly know where your jumping-in point is. I call this setting ourselves up for success.

NEXT: Boardroom Engagement — Part 3 (Communicate balanced horizons)
Or if you missed it, here is Boardroom Engagement — Part 1 (Transparency)

Check out more from my series of Leadership articles or my practical guides on building and operating effective Product Engineering Squads.

All thoughts are my own.