Beyond Compliance- A Matter of Choice in Board Leadership (Continued)

By Johnson Manyakara Strictly Compliance Route Spare a thought for company corpses that have littered the business landscape in Zimbabwe and globally because their boards elected the Strictly Compliance Route, with little attention to the road ahead, almost to the point of obsession. Typically, organisations that traverse this route adopt a traditional board agenda, informed by Exhibit 1 below. Exhibit 1 [Adapted from “Building a forward –looking board, “ McKinsey Quarterly, February 2014] “There are times when CEOs are the last ones to see changes coming,” commented the Chairman of a leading energy company quoted in “Building a forward – looking board”, McKinsey Quarterly, February 2014. Boards and Directors shoulder the key role in providing the leadership for bringing the much – needed balance that ensures necessary changes in the business operating environment affecting the enterprise are detected early enough with the necessary changes in strategy effected in time. Compliance

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Beyond Compliance – A Matter of Choice in Board Leadership

By Johnson Manyakara “Governance arguably suffers most when boards spend too much time looking in the rear view mirror and not enough (time) scanning the road ahead” – Christian Casal & Christian Casper, February 2014, McKinsey Quarterly “Our lives are a sum total of the choices we have made” – Wayne Dyer Boards have two choices in terms of the philosophy that should guide the execution of their mandates, accountable to shareholders. Either they take the “Strictly Compliance Route” or the “Compliance + Route”. The “Strictly Compliance Route” entails being obsessed with “looking in the rear view mirror” of one’s organisation with very little time spent on “scanning the road ahead” (see illustration below). The “Compliance + Route”, on the other hand, entails balancing between a focus on board compliance issues and looking further ahead on matters crucial to the prosperity and direction of the organisation – “scanning the road

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