Good leaders, bad information
It all began back in 2008, sitting in the back of the room as a consultant, watching a successful FTSE 250 conduct its board meeting. They had a high-calibre board and some big strategic challenges: it was set to be a great meeting.
And yet it wasn’t. For four hours, the board members pored over papers filled with backwards-looking financial and operational data. They didn’t talk about the things that mattered.
That’s when the penny dropped. No matter how capable the people, a board is only as good as their information. Information drives the conversation.
But why did fixing this matter to us enough to pin our careers to it?
Because of the other thing we learned from this board: that if they’d been having the conversations they wanted to be having, everyone stood to gain. As well as long-term value creation, they were concerned about reports of a climate crisis, growing wealth inequality, and the wellbeing of their workforce.
Later, we polled a few hundred directors to ask what they felt was missing from their boardrooms and they echoed these concerns. Most business leaders want to do a good job, not just for themselves and their shareholders, but for wider society too. Our journey to enabling this had begun.
Fixing the problem, forever
For the first few years, we tackled the problem as consultants would: with projects.
We reviewed thousands of board reports and consulted with hundreds of board members. We found what works and what doesn’t. And we built up the knowledge that formed the basis of the QDI Principle, our critical thinking (and writing) playbook, helping management to draw out what matters and prepare board and management papers that hit the mark.
Our playbook developed a following, with non-executives on one board taking us to the next. But it was only ever an intervention. So, we began to explore how we could combine our playbook with technology, to deliver a lasting impact.
Our report-writing platform and board portal were born.
Building leadership at every level
“For every decision we take in the boardroom, we take thousands outside of it. And that’s where we need Board Intelligence.”
This next part of our story has been driven by our clients — clients who understood better than us, the relevance of our critical thinking platform and playbook to the way they run their business.
For years, we helped them to change the conversation in their boardroom — balancing the short-term with the long-term, profit with purpose, the needs of shareholders with the needs of society.
Today we help our clients to change the conversation throughout their organisation, helping them unlock the potential of their human capital and helping them become the boards and the businesses they always wanted to be.
