I currently mentor a number business owners, directors and CEOs. There are a number of dimensions to all of this but the biggest hurdle that I encounter is the Chairman, CEO or director who by virtue of their position, believe they "know it all" - and it's much more common than one might think.

When I mentor CEOs, directors and chairmen, it is often important to do it in a way that is "invisible" to the organisation because it may compromise their standing and status. The only people who are aware of the relationship is the board (who approve the relationship) and accounts (who pay for it). Even then, the discussions between the two are totally private.

I call it Mentoring-in-Confidence (MIC) which is quite different to a coaching role which often relates to the development of specifc skills.

A MIC is a professional, very senior and generally mature person with a broad and deep
understanding of people, organisations, commercial processes, political processes and
organisational systems and structures.

The MIC has superior talents in identifying root causes of issues and quickly providing options for action.

The MIC acts as a strategic angel, confidante, network pivot, devil’s dvocate, “technical filter” and mentor who challenges, guides, suggests, helps, helps develop strategies, facilitates and coordinates for his/her client.

The relationship is guided by strict confidentiality, ethical, honest, open, sensitive, professional and forthright standards and discipline.

The relationship built between a client and a MIC often develops into life-long friendship.

A key element of the relationship is the chemistry between the two people  - a person who is not prepared to consider the experience and advice of others is not generally fertile ground for growth and development.

Although sustainability is important, and very important at that, it is not as big an imperative for some companies as it is for others.

For a company where issues of sustainability and environmental responsibility are critical or important, one might consider having those skill sets represented on the board. But similarly, sustainability skills can be bought through the advisory market for those companies where those issues aren't critical all the time.

Similar arguments can be made for legal, financial, industry, international, people, technical, etc skills for different companies.

Ultimately, the skills represented on the board must be the skills that help the board steer the corporation - no more and no less. Too many companies have adopted guru theories and trends and have been burdened with non-value adding processes and disciplines.

Let's be careful but diligent about which skills are represented on the board and why.

This article (http://www.linkedin.com/news?viewArticle=&articleID=483250554&gid=1331907&type=member&item=51149915&articleURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eswissinfo%2Ech%2Feng%2Fbusiness%2FExecutive_bother_as_shareholders_rattle_cage%2Ehtml%3Fcid%3D30030374&urlhash=auoi&goback=%2Egde_1331907_member_51149915) correctly flags the growing crescendo of shareholder activism. As flagged in previous postings, this will not stop and directors and executives need to pay close attention.

Where directors get it wrong is to assume that 1) all shareholders have the same objectives (research and logic clearly demonstrate that they don't); 2) Act as if they do; 3) Treat shareholders as the enemy and a pain to be endured; 4) Fail to understand that directors are proxied by shareholders to deliver shareholder objectives; 5) Fail to understand (or even ask) what their shareholders want; and 6) that institutions are a proxy for all shareholders.

Shareholders get it wrong by 1) trying to run the companies they have appointed directors and managers to run. Shareholder will not ever have the same information and resources to manage the company effectively as management, regardless of how well informed one or a handful of shareholders may be, but they should be telling the company what outcomes they want; 2) assuming that the AGM and a loud voice are the only strategies available to the shareholder.

In order to lower the activism temperature companies should (must) start taking shareholder metrics on what their shareholders want as outcomes from their investment around value, benefit, growth and risk perceptions.

A few large listed companies are now preparing to do this - therefore this is an inevitability so directors need to start paying attention now.

Directors are increasingly being seen by shareholders as "the enemy" even though a core part of their responsibility is ensure that shareholders are satisfied. All the corporate rhetoric says that yet the performance is abysmal. Shareholders are rebuffed at every turn.

The situation is now changing. The days of the corporate executive sitting sanctimoniously on his board-throne is being challenged and will soon crumble. Directors will certainly continue but they will be, and be seen to be "merely" agents of the owners ensuring proper, ethical, legal and commercial performance of their investment in order to deliver to those owners the outcomes they "were promised".

"Times are a changin'."                 

Of course it matters. Research conducted over many years clearly demonstrates that managers, like all people, are largely directed by their own subjectivities and contexts.

This means for corporations, that senior managers are attracted to strategies and initiatives that not only enhance the corporation, but also increase positioning of the manager and generally shy away from high personal risk. This is a problem for corporations because not all initiatives and programs are judged by objective criteria but are interfered with by people's subjectivities. When a corporation needs to embark on a higher risk strategy, the strategy might not be adopted because managers may be blamed if it doesn't succeed and they may have "a lot to lose."

There should be no surprise in this.

Therefore, a board that does not monitor managers, their actions, decisions and assumptions, is failing in its duty.

Furthermore, boards demonstrate their own subjectivity too. Then it's the shareholder's responsibility to ensure that the the board does not allow its own subjectivity to impede the aspirations of shareholders.

It is the role of the board to deliver its charter. If it is a for-profit corporation, then its role is to deliver to its shareholders/investors their definition (as interpreted by the board) of value, benefit, growth and risk.

To do that, it must manage its stakeholders to deliver those outcomes. The corporation does not exist for the stakeholders, per se, even though those non-shareholder stakeholders may have a serious interest in the organisation.

If the organisation is a NFP, then the board must ensure that the organisation delivers its charter objectives - no more, no less.

An organisation's Vision should not be its driving force. It's Mission, in definable and quantifiable terms should be its "purpose for existance". The Vision is "merely" the view the organisation has of itself sometime in the future while delivering its mission - and it changes as its context matures.

If you are focussed on the vision, then you seriously risk being captured by the enabler instead of the outcome required.

Boards will not support human rights proposals for a few reasons:

1. Corporations are not agents for social change - they exist to deliver to their owners that which the owners want (leaving aside the distortions caused by board and management subjectivity, greed and stupidity).

2. What is ethical for one person is not ethical for another. What is oppression for one, is freedom to treat for another. This doesn't in any way justify or condone unethical practices, but it does emphasize the "greyness" of the discussion.

3. What is unethical in say, a Western society, may be totally acceptable in another country in which the corporation is active. Take treatment of women for example. Treating women equally is a given (at least in theory) in Western economies while women are treated as chattels in many second and third-world economies.

4. A large number of investors / shareholders earn their funds through questionable activities and from questionable sources.

5. If society wants corporations to support human rights principles, then, assuming one could define them in a way that would secure widespread agreement, you should legislate for such principles and practices so that all corporations are on a level playing field. In other words, government must define what companies can and can't do. This will be a challenge since first-world governments themselves deal with, support and fund second and third-world countries that commonly act in a manner that contravenes human rights.

6. Therefore, if you want human rights principles to prevail, then two initiatives are needed:

• Have governments legislate for it (despite the caveats above) and demonstrate in their other dealings the human rights principles they expect of corporations;
• Have shareholders withhold their investment in those companies who demonstrably do not exhibit positive human rights behaviours. If you hit the company in a manner it understands, i.e. financially, then it will alter its behaviour. Appealing to a board's altruistic motivations is like asking an alcoholic to refrain from drinking at a party at a brewery.

Expecting boards to behave above the lowest common standard is a futile expectation.

The reason some members of the Greens are seen as anti-Semitic is because of their silence and abject failure to criticize other nation states on equal terms. Israel is by no means perfect, nor is any other nation for that matter, yet members of the Greens single out Israel above (instead of) all others.

If some of the members of the Greens focused on other nations the same way they focused on Israel, then the criticism would be fair, subject of course to the accuracy of their accusations. But since they choose to ignore all other atrocities and only focus on Israel, then it is impossible to absolve them from the anti-Jewish intent of some of their initiatives.

Israel is the only country in the world in which Jews can be guaranteed freedom from persecution for being Jewish. We already know that there are attempts around the world to delegitimize Israel’s existence, through campaigns funded by Arab states (refer UK educational institutions, UK unions, President Jimmy Carter’s apology, etc).

Such delegitimisation implies that Jews should not have their own home-land. If that is the case then that is rampant anti-Semitism – no matter which way you look at it. If the Greens support anyone within their midst who propagates such views, then don’t be surprised when Jews and other reasonable people use all the energy they can muster to excise the cancer from any sphere of influence in this society – not for their own benefit – but because it’s the right thing to do.

Information security is part of the multi-dimemsional responsibilities of management. It's the board's responsibility to make sure they do it effectively and economically.

There is no generic answer to "How much security do we need" - it is of course context based.
The more sensitive the information, the more security is needed. The more the information can be used to enrich someone (or destroy someone), then the more security is needed. The more the organisation is planning for major change, the more security is needed.

"Enough security" is when the information is suitably secure. What the definition of 'secure' is, is however open to definition. Some data systems are considered secure if they cannot be breached using tools valued at $200,000 for example. That implies that if someone has sufficient motivation, all systems can be breached, but such a system is "safe" from the "casual intruder".

Therefore each organisation needs to determine its own threshold of tolerance. Using external consultants to recommend what that is may be useful.

Culture is much more than 'values and what behaviour is acceptable.' Culture is an all-encompassing term that not only relates to the way staff interact and deal with each other, but also how the organisation deals with suppliers, customers, the community, mistakes made by staff, reward, remuneration, promotion and succession, etc.

As such, it is the role of management to ensure that culture is sculpted to serve the purposes of the organisation in order to deliver its objectives. Culture is not a given and is not fixed. As hard as it is to change, it is still changeable - and that's management's responsibility.

The board's role then, is to oversight that the nature, character and delivery of 'culture' , like all other operational elements, is effective, suitable, practical and appropriately implemented. The board is not equipped to 'manage culture' as it is not "close enough to the game" to really understand it.

Thus management has available to it a wide range of options to 'right-size' and 'right-shape' the culture it needs to perform as required. Survey's are but one tool. Other tools might include workshops, one-to-one interviews, external reviews, client feedback, supplier feedback, team feedback, 360 degree reviews, etc. What works and what doesn't work depends largely on the context and the objective - each is good when it is fit for purpose.

Furthermore, the culture needed by the organisation to achieve its objectives need not or may not be the same culture needed for the board to operate effectively.

There are two imperatives for the board in relation to culture: 1) ensure that management develops a strategy to establish and maintain the culture needed for the organisation to fulfil its charter, and 2) develop a culture within the board that will most effectively and efficiently enable the board to fulfil its responsibilities and obligations.