The Savvy Director Blog

Like so many Canadians, I’m looking forward to having hockey back in my life. If all goes according to plan (fingers crossed!), the NHL will be treating fans to playoff games very shortly, as teams compete for the 2020 Stanley Cup. There’ll be empty arenas, they’ll be playing in only two cities, and the players will stay in their own ‘bubbles’ for the duration – so it will definitely be a strange kind of play-off season.

But still – it’s the...

Over the years I’ve been involved in more than a few searches for a new CEO, and, I have to say, it’s got to be one of the most nerve-wracking processes that a board of directors undertakes. There is just so much riding on that one decision. It’s a process that is fraught with risk – the risk of overlooking the right person and selecting the wrong person.

In recent blog posts, we’ve dealt with different takes on the board’s role in CEO succession –...

Last week’s blog about Interim CEOs seemed to strike a nerve. One reader even told us “You have no idea how timely this is. I am right in the middle of this exact discussion.”

Keeping with the topic of CEO succession, I asked Alice Sayant, co-founder of DirectorPrep.com™, to share her views about the board’s approach to succession planning.

Alice’s Take on Succession Planning

So, Scott gets to write about the controversial topic of interim CEOs, and here I...

Key person risk - by definition, it’s the risk carried by an organization that depends to a great extent on one individual for its success. From the board’s perspective, the organization’s primary dependence is on the CEO, the person through whom all good things happen! From the CEO’s perspective, the key person in the organization might be someone else - the lead revenue generator, the head of creative content, the inventor, the chief IT architect, or the morning...

I recently woke up at 3:00 AM with my mind racing about the upcoming board meeting scheduled for later that day via video conference.

As I lay in bed, I heard Fergus, our 15-year-old Scottish terrier, snoring away on the floor beside our bed. It would not be long before his 5:30 AM wake-up bark telling me he wanted to go outside. I needed to get back to sleep.

That day’s upcoming board meeting was the culprit that was keeping me awake. As a volunteer on a government agency board, I was...

Have you attended your first virtual board meeting yet? If not, I’m sure there’s one just around the corner.

Organizations big and small have been adopting virtual meetings to enable seamless board governance in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent social distancing and isolation requirements. Large, geographically dispersed companies may have been using video conferencing for their board meetings for some time already. At the other end of the spectrum are boards...

If you’re like me, your email inbox has been filling up with information from various businesses about how they are responding to the challenges presented by COVID-19. And if you sit on a board of directors, you have likely been hearing from your management team as they implement their business continuity plan (assuming they have one!) in the face of this health crisis.

The business risk resulting from a pandemic was incorporated into some plans as a response to the outbreaks of SARS...

Ensuring that the annual operating budget is aligned with the strategic plan was one of my greatest takeaways when I was enduring ‘audit committee weekend’ as part of the corporate director certification program. LoL!

I learned that many of the best questions for management come from non-financial people like me around the board table. Why would that be?

While I believe the audit partners teaching that program module wanted to get the non-financial people excited about being on...

“How is it you would rather find the time to rewrite an ‘F’ grade paper for a better mark than to invest the right amount of time in the first place?” This comment was made by one of my university profs. A truer observation would be hard to find.

There is real power in preparing. Preparation is like prevention -- it reduces the potential for failure and the costs that go with it.

Where am I going with this? I’m glad you asked. 

Preparation is the Savvy...

Remember that feeling just before walking into your first board meeting? That combination of excitement and trepidation? You were wondering what you had got yourself into. But you couldn’t wait to make your mark.

But maybe that feeling has changed. Let's say you’ve been sitting on the board for a while. But now, instead of feeling excited and energized, eager to add value and make a difference, maybe you have a sinking feeling before your board meeting. Maybe you are not...