Chasing Shiny Objects

If you sit on a board today, you’ve seen the flood of “must-have” topics: artificial intelligence, AI ethics, cybersecurity/resilience, ESG disclosures, climate risk, DEI, modern slavery, biodiversity, geopolitical risk, digital transformation, age diversity, talent strategy, supply chain vulnerabilities, shareholder activism – the list grows every month.

Sometimes, the governance buzz is deafening. For directors, it’s easy to feel torn between the urgent and the important.

Consultants, governance experts, and boardroom media all have something urgent for your board to consider. The underlying message? If you’re not talking about these topics right now, you might be falling behind.

Here’s the truth: your board doesn’t have to chase every shiny object or tackle everything right now. The real challenge is in recognizing which topics are truly critical to your board’s context and priorities, and which can be monitored without dominating your agenda.  

This edition of The Savvy Director gives you a simple, practical framework to help make that distinction, and to integrate important issues into your agendas and annual planning without losing focus.

What’s Relevant for Your Board – and When?

Those are key questions. Three realities shape your answers:

1. Materiality is contextual. A topic can dominate headlines yet still be immaterial to your organization’s mission or risk profile – at least for now.
2. Capacity is finite. Board and management time is scarce. Trade-offs are inevitable.
3. Oversight is dynamic. The degree of relevance of any given topic changes along with strategy, stakeholders, and the external environment. Directors who are agile and stay curious outperform those who chase trends.

A Simple Compass: The 3-Tier Framework

Core, Emerging, Overhyped. The acronym CEO for our 3-tier framework helps boards focus energy and keep “shiny objects” in perspective. Using the 3-tier framework helps ensure your board’s time and attention are spent on the right issues while keeping Shiny Object Syndrome in perspective.

What follows is a draft outline of priority topics for Tiers 1 to 3 of our CEO framework. Considering the context and materiality for your own board’s situation helps determine your meeting’s focus.

By the way, for any of these topics, regardless of tier, you can access useful boardroom questions from DirectorPrep’s ChatDPQ™.

Tier 1: Core, High Priority Topics

These are non negotiables – the bedrock of effective governance. They belong on every board’s radar regardless of the organization’s size, sector, or maturity. Almost every board must address these topics consistently.

Strategic oversight – Maintaining clarity on long term vision, goals, and strategy. Boards monitor execution without crossing into operational control.

Enterprise risk oversight – Overseeing the Identification, monitoring, and mitigation of key risks including financial, operational, cybersecurity, geopolitical, and reputational.

Financial oversight, stewardship and audit integrity – Approving budgets, monitoring performance, ensuring solvency and transparent reporting.

CEO succession & executive leadership oversight – Selecting, evaluating, and planning for leadership continuity.

Board composition and renewal – Aligning skills, diversity (including DEI and age diversity), and independence with strategic needs.

Supply chain reliability – Overseeing risks in global and local supply chains — from geopolitical disruptions to supplier quality and ethical sourcing, including modern slavery compliance. Boards coping with this issue should ensure management is not only meeting legislative requirements, such as Canada’s Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act or the UK Modern Slavery Act, but also embedding these considerations into procurement, supplier vetting, and ongoing supply chain monitoring.

This topic sits at the intersection of regulatory compliance, ethical responsibility, reputational risk, and operational resilience. While it’s an obvious issue for manufacturers, there are implications for other boards as well. Nonprofit boards should think about it in terms of critical partnerships or service providers.

Tier 2: Emerging and Strategic Topics

These topics are important for many – but not all – boards, depending on context, industry, and geography. Usually, topics like these can be addressed through periodic deep dives at a board meeting or retreat.

AI governance – Ensuring the responsible, ethical use of artificial intelligence, preventing bias, and complying with regulations.

ESG oversight – Integrating environmental, social, and governance principles into strategy. This includes climate risk, human rights, sustainability, and community engagement.

Talent strategy and workforce planning – Aligning workforce capabilities and leadership pipelines with strategic needs. Overseeing culture and retention is a priority for organizations facing rapid change, industry disruption, or competitive talent markets.

Stakeholder engagement and transparency – Building trust and maintaining productive relationships with shareholders, employees, customers, regulators, and communities.

Digital transformation and future readiness – Encouraging innovation while managing risk. Anticipating market shifts and disruptive trends.

Tier 3: Overhyped or Situational Topics

These topics are being heavily promoted, but for some boards they may be oversold, trendy, or relevant only within a specific context. Most boards should monitor them but avoid letting them dominate the agenda unless they directly impact strategy.

Generational/Age diversity as a standalone priority – Younger board directors can add value, but age diversity should be balanced with other skills and perspectives.

Hyper detailed ESG metrics and reporting frameworks – Extensive reporting, unless required by shareholders, investors, or regulators, can distract from actually making an impact. It consumes management bandwidth, overwhelms stakeholders with data, and diverts attention from meaningful ESG initiatives.

Artificial Intelligence hype without a clear use case – Boards must ensure that their oversight of AI initiatives is proportional to their actual strategic value, rather than chasing trends that don’t have a clear business case.

Overly prescriptive board culture programs – One-size-fits-all frameworks rarely succeed. Instead, tailor board culture initiatives to actual needs.

Excessive focus on philanthropic strategy – Mission-driven organizations may have philanthropy at their core. For others, it should be evaluated in terms of strategic alignment with brand equity, ESG commitments, and stakeholder expectations. An excessive focus can divert resources from core mission or operational priorities.

Nature and Biodiversity – These are critical for resource-heavy industries like mining, agriculture, energy, and forestry, but less so for others.  For impacted industries, biodiversity issues can directly affect license to operate, regulatory compliance, stakeholder trust, and long-term sustainability.

Government corporate involvement – In heavily regulated or subsidized sectors such as healthcare, pharmaceuticals, energy, transportation, and defense, government involvement can shape strategy, regulatory compliance obligations, and funding opportunities. These boards must stay informed about policy changes and pay attention to the organization’s relationship with government and regulators.

Applying the 3-Tier Framework to Your Board

You can use the 3-tier framework to help prepare the annual board calendar or work plan and the next meeting’s agenda without adding hours to the time spent in meetings.

Here are four questions to consider before adding an agenda topic from Tier 2 or 3:

1. Is it directly relevant to our strategy and priorities?
2. Could it become critical in the next 1-3 years?
3. If we don’t address it now, what’s the risk?
4. Who will monitor Tier 2 and 3 topics so we’re not blindsided later?

Your answers will help determine whether a topic belongs in Tier 1, 2, or 3 – and how much agenda time it deserves. Even Tier 3 topics may be on the agenda from time to time or at a board retreat.

Context matters. Sector, geography, stage of the business cycle, and stakeholder expectations are helpful guides when deciding whether the latest “shiny object” is relevant to your board right now.

Starting the Conversation

Introducing the 3-tier framework doesn’t require a major overhaul.

Try language like: “I’d like to suggest a way to prioritize governance topics so we stay focused and informed. It’s a simple tiered approach – what we must do, what we should do, and what we’ll watch.”

As a next step, the savvy director in you might offer to share a one-page summary or propose a short discussion at the committee level.

Prioritization isn’t just a process – it’s a mindset. Boards that value curiosity and humility make better decisions about relevance. Encourage directors to ask:

• What problem are we solving by adding this topic?
• How does this align with our mission and strategy?
• What’s the risk of ignoring it for now?

These questions foster independent thinking and collaboration – two Savvy Director habits that help define a strong board culture.

Focus Beats FOMO

Fear of missing out (FOMO) is a natural human feeling. But it’s not a director’s role to chase every shiny object the governance marketplace introduces. It’s your job to stay informed, ask smart questions, and consider trends in ways that serve your organization’s strategy, stakeholders, and community.

Use the CEO framework to:

• Prioritize Tier 1 essentials relentlessly.
• Go deep on a few Tier 2 topics that matter this year.
• Keep Tier 3 issues on a disciplined watch list.

When directors combine focus with curiosity, they govern with clarity and courage. That’s the Savvy Director way.

Your Takeaways

• You can’t do it all – and you don’t need to. Use the 3-tier framework to focus on what matters most.
• Tier 1 topics are non-negotiable. Strategy, risk, succession, board effectiveness, and financial oversight belong on every agenda.
• Tier 2 topics deserve thoughtful scheduling. Pick two or three that align with your strategy and stakeholders this year.
• Tier 3 topics aren’t irrelevant – they’re watch items. Assign responsibility for monitoring and elevate only when triggers occur.
• Ask smart questions. Every topic should answer: What problem are we solving? How does this align with our mission?
• Start small. Share the framework with your board chair, suggest adding a watch list” and schedule one learning session.
• Stay curious, not distracted. Focus beats FOMO – and that’s how savvy directors govern with clarity and courage.

Resources: The Shiny Objects

• 2025 Governance Outlook. NACD. © 2025 National Association of Corporate Directors.
• 10 DEI Best Practices for Nonprofit Boards. Funds for NGOs. February 2025.
• What’s important to the board in 2025. PwC. © 2017-2025 PwC.
• 2025 Cybersecurity Playbook: Board Oversight for Digital Risk. Easy Board.
• Strategic AI Governance Roadmap – What Boards of Directors Need to Know. Deloitte. © 2025 Deloitte Development LLC.
• Modern Slavery: A Key Element of the ‘S’ in ESG. CMS Legal. June 2023.
• Board governance. McKinsey Insights. © 1996-2025 McKinsey & Company.
• The Rise of AI – Preparing Directors for the Shift. NACD. © 2025 National Association of Corporate Directors.
• Hot Topics for Boards and Committees. Melissa Sawyer, Lauren Boehmke, and Susan M. Lindsay. Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance. September 2024.
• Nominating/Governance Committees: Top Issues for 2025. Spencer Stuart. January 2025.
• The 2025 Governance Outlook. Bill Hayes. Directors & Boards. January 2025.
• Hot topics for board members. KPMG. © KPMG AG.
• Emerging Governance Issues Merit Boardroom Attention. Michael Peregrine. Forbes. August 2025.

Thank you.

Scott

Scott Baldwin is a certified corporate director (ICD.D) and co-founder of DirectorPrep.com – an online membership with practical tools for board directors who choose a learning and growth mindset.

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