Board Intelligence’s chief executive Pippa Begg and Silicon Valley veteran Ann Hiatt discuss the value of effective boards, Silicon Valley ways of working, and Ann’s new role as chair of Board Intelligence.
Below is a transcript of the video.
Pippa: Ann, you have worked all over the world. You have been right hand lady to the greats of Jeff Bezos at Amazon through to Eric Schmidt at Google. You have advised tech CEOs in America, Europe, and Asia. And now, welcome to Board Intelligence as our new chair.
Ann: Thank you. I'm really excited about this partnership, not only because I feel like we're so aligned in our methodologies and our passion around helping drive effective leadership teams and boards, but also in this incredible moment in Board Intelligence's growth and progression. I'm excited about the partnership that you now have with K1 Investment and the incredible milestones that are just around the corner here. I think your methodologies, your scientific and data-driven approach to increasing the efficiencies and the effectiveness of these boards is such a natural partnership, so I'm excited about this next phase.
Pippa: What inspired your belief in effective boards? And, in your experience, what's holding them back?
Ann: I've spent fifteen years of my career working in some of the most effective C-suites in the world and really looking at the methodologies, the common threads, the playbooks, what consistently leads to highly effective decision making. And an expansion of that learning now in focusing on boards of directors feels like a nice continuation of that.
I think the principles are very much the same. Some of the challenges that we have on C Suites are the same with boards. We're trying to make high velocity decisions at the highest possible quality. We're really looking for scientifically backed, data-driven decision making. And especially now, when the future can feel a little bit uncertain with emerging technologies, now is the time to really add that kind of scientific driven rigour into all of our decision making.
Pippa: You have mentioned science a few times. We are great believers in the science of board effectiveness – the methodologies, the frameworks, the approaches. And I know one of the things that we've discussed is that many organisations have good intentions, but the thing that separates the good from the great is that they scientifically take those intentions and embed them through their organisations.
Ann: I couldn't agree more. I find so many leadership teams are looking to be effective, but sometimes they get drawn into the weeds or they're not given the right kind of information for them to have the insights and the forecasting capabilities that they would otherwise have.
Inserting your methodologies through both your SaaS product, and through the consulting and making really bespoke solutions for executive teams looking to be more effective, feels like such a nice continuation of this work and a beautiful part of our collaboration going forward.
Pippa: We've spent a lot of time talking about highly effective boards and high-performance cultures that run from the board all the way down through the organisation. There are two things that I think I found fascinating talking to you more about. One is the creation of culture of innovation and future thinking. The second is how do you create organisations that can move super-fast? They have decision making agility as part of their DNA.
Ann: This is what I get really excited about, and I feel like this is such a beautiful merging of our passions and approach to our work.
So, what I really look for in highly effective teams is giving them the methodologies of the systems and the data tracking they need to make high velocity decisions, high quality decisions, and to really be able to get into pursuit mode and experimentation mode so that they're making the most of the opportunities afforded to them.
Pippa: One of the things that the organisations you've worked for in the past, one of the things they're famed for, is how future focused they are and their culture of innovation. Now, my guess is that didn't happen by chance.
Ann: No. That's definitely true. That kind of forward looking, inventing the future really comes from being very rigorous in your decision making, in your data tracking, and really keeping your executive teams accountable to some of your growth goals.
This requires consistency and effort, and it's something that we can remove the mystery of. I think this is a replicable pattern that doesn't have to be unique to Silicon Valley high growth firms. It can be applicable to businesses of any size or scale regardless of their industry. There are some silver thread learnings here that I feel are applicable to any high performing team.
Pippa: And it's one of the things we see time and time again with boards. They talk about wanting to spend more time on strategy and the future. But when you actually take an analytical lens to it and say, “let's have a look at your agendas, let's see where you're spending your time,” we find that boards are always overweight the operations, underweight strategy.
And, going to how do we help people embed this. We now have tools where people can track how they're spending their time. They can hold that mirror up at any point in time to see whether they are delivering those good intentions or falling short of them in the way they're running a business.
Ann: I think this is a really powerful combination that is unique to what Board Intelligence is doing and offering into the industry. Where you can give them not only the day-to-day systems and the operational side, that provides that rigour and those data tracking capabilities, but also allowing for bespoke solutions that are unique and respectful of the culture and the history that got these companies to where they are in this moment in time, and then use that as a launchpad for their future capabilities. I think it's a very powerful combination.
Pippa: I know another thing we've talked about is writing culture. At Board Intelligence, we talk about the importance of high-quality thinking, and the way that you crystallise that high quality thinking is through the discipline of writing. I know this is an important principle to you too.
Ann: I have seen this at the highest possible level. I think this is among the secret sauce secrets of why Amazon and Google were highly effective.
When I was working in the C-suite of both companies, this was a rigour and a discipline that could not be compromised. We had a heavy kind of academic feel approach to decision making where there was a methodology and a consistency in writing culture, data-driven culture, and really tracking the intricacies of every decision that was made.
I'm a big believer in a writing culture where we get into the depth of thought. We spent a lot of time analysing opportunities, examining possible path forward, and then getting into a quick pursuit mode where we're doing some experimentation of seeing how it performs in the wild. And I feel like this can be the big differentiator between mediocre management teams and those that really excel.
Pippa: Ann, we're thrilled to be working with you, not just as our chair, but having co-developed a proposition with you for our customer base, taking the science of board effectiveness, all of the good practice that you've experienced throughout your career into software solutions and services to help our customers take those good intentions into reality and ways of working in their businesses.
Ann: I couldn't agree more. I think it's a really powerful combination when you're able to offer a SaaS product that gives you the rigour and methodologies for daily implementation, but also the consulting work of the implementation and the forecasting of future opportunities for that. This is a very powerful combination, and I'm thrilled to be working on this together.