Does the board face up to problems?

‘When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.’

John F Kennedy

‘You rarely tell a board something completely new. But too many bury their heads in the sand and hope it goes away. It’s a bit optimistic to hope that the Housing Corporation, Audit Commission, lenders and local authority partners will all fail to sniff out a crisis.

'Half the problems are caused because board members and senior staff think they are all good people incapable of doing anything wrong. Most are genuinely astonished when the media (usually Private Eye) is critical of appointments, salary levels and procurement decisions.’

Governance consultant

In any business things go wrong. Interest rates soar, mergers fail to work out, partners screw up, senior appointments end in tears, new IT systems never deliver and homes get flooded. How does your organisation respond?

  • What is the most recent crisis or setback your organisation faced?
  • Could it have been anticipated? Was it on your risk register?
  • How well did the organisation respond?
  • What lessons have been learned? Could it happen again?

Next: Scanning the horizon »