Do you think of your board as your customer? You probably do. If you don’t this might give you some food for thought:

In his book EMERGENT, Stephen Scott Johnson talks about the old ways of building a relationship with your customer and the new, EMERGENT ways. His focus is heavily on co-creation. It’s more partnering than servicing.

A board and executive are operating in partnership. That means there should be a lot more co-creation than reporting. In EMERGENT, Johnson provides a long list of the old and the new ways organisations engage with the outside world. Here is my list of the old ways we engaged with boards and the new ways you should now adopt:

In essence I am saying treat your board like the modern customer. Don’t just give them what you think they want. The modern customer demands more. They want to be understood. They want to be involved. They are intelligent enough to understand the issues around the issue. No longer is there a place for controlling the board. It must now all be about partnership.