Ready for the boardroom

Who It's For

Women preparing for, or new to, trustee, non-executive and board roles

Overview

This one-day programme moves in four stages. It begins with getting there: how boards work and where power really sits, drawing on the Higgs Review and Kanter's work on tokens, the seven general duties of company directors, the board skills matrix, and checking a board before you say yes. Next comes making a difference: your first hundred days, independence as a habit, Irving Janis on groupthink and the Theranos board, and handling interests with the Porter v Magill test. The third stage covers the numbers and the risks: reading accounts across sectors, ratios as questions, Carillion's warning signs, internal audit and the audit committee, and testing strategy without writing it, with Nokia and Netflix as cases. Finally, the chair: the four-part role and the relationship with the chief executive.

Aims

This programme aims to develop women who choose the right board with confidence, understand their duties and protections, read the papers and the accounts well, and use their voice to ask the question everyone is thinking, while building the skills that open the way to the chair.

In summary, you will be able to:

1. 1Explain how boards work, where power sits and the legal duties of directors and trustees, and assess a board carefully before accepting a seat.
2. 2Use the accounts, ratios, internal audit and the audit committee to ask well-framed questions about an organisation's finances, risks and strategy.
3. 3Apply constructive challenge, independence and sound handling of interests to make a difference on a board, and plan open routes towards the chair.

What you'll develop

By the end of this Immerse, you will be able to:

1. 1Identify the experience you already bring and translate it into the language of a board skills matrix.
2. 2Assess a board before accepting a role, through due diligence on its numbers, regulator, people and your capacity, and recognise the warning signs of a risky board.
3. 3Apply constructive challenge, support and practical influence techniques such as amplification, while keeping your independence as a habit.
4. 4Apply the five steps of spotting, declaring, recording, stepping back and reviewing to an interest in your own work.
5. 5Apply a five-step discipline of define, trend, compare, set limits and ask to turn a ratio pack into board questions.
6. 6Apply the four questions for every audit meeting and the lessons from Croydon to challenge reports on companies, investments and reserves.
7. 7Apply testing tools, the critical friend questions and the standard for a good strategy paper to challenge a strategic proposal without writing it.
8. 8Apply the core craft skills of chairing across the meeting cycle to draw out the room's best thinking and avoid common pitfalls.