Becoming a Boardroom Star


Book Description

Practical advice for board members on optimizing their effectiveness, influence and impact in the boardroom - whether as a new director or Board Chair. The book was developed from the author's experience undertaking board and director evaluations at nearly 200 boards (largely boards of public companies) over the past 25 years - where more than a thousand board members spoke to her in confidence about the capabilities and contributions of their peers. Becoming a Boardroom Star offers insights about what makes a great director shine in the boardroom - earning the genuine esteem of their peers, the respect of senior management and, most important of all, adding real value for the company's stakeholders. While it focuses primarily on what distinguishes those directors considered truly outstanding from the others, the author also identifies common pitfalls that directors should be careful to avoid. It begins with advice for new directors about steps they can take to embellish their orientation program, discusses hallmarks of a boardroom star and concludes with insights on becoming an outstanding board leader - whether in a committee chair role or as Chair of the Board, itself. It also includes appendices designed to illustrate some of the models and processes discussed in the book.




Great Companies Deserve Great Boards


Book Description

Despite the many changes in governance regulation over the past decade, few boards function as a true corporate asset to the companies they oversee. In this book, Behan offers practical advice that a CEO, Chairman or board member can introduce at the very next meeting. Boardrooms are filled with intelligent, accomplished people—yet seldom achieve their full potential and add the kind of value for the CEO, executive team and company shareholders that many boards are actually capable of. Beverly Behan draws on her experience working with more than 100 boards over the past 14 years—from major Fortune 500s to recent IPOs—offering no-nonsense insights that can take any board from mediocrity to the top of its game including establishing a constructive working relationship with your board; addressing some of the dysfunction that may lie within the board you’ve inherited, and making your board a significant asset to you, your company, and your executive team. Working with the Board of Directors is one of the most important components of any CEO’s job—and most will admit it is something they wish they knew more about. Nearly all CEOs want to change at least something about their board, yet many are unsure how to go about this in the right way. This book not only alerts the reader to common pitfalls that CEO's can make with their boards, it provides workable approaches to a tackle a variety of boardroom issues from getting new talent into the boardroom to engaging effectively with the board on strategy and succession planning.




Inside the Boardroom


Book Description

Distinguished governance experts offer cures for what ails our boards of directors In light of corporate malfeasance in recent years, the governance of corporations has been receiving great attention from regulators, researchers, shareholders, and directors themselves. Based on Richard Leblanc's in-depth five-year study of 39 boards of directors of both for- and not-for-profit organizations, Building a Better Board goes behind the scenes to reveal the inner workings of boards of directors, including how they make decisions. Recently chosen as one of Canada's "Top 40 Under 40"(TM), Dr Richard Leblanc is an award-winning teacher and researcher, certified management consultant, professional speaker, professor, lawyer and specialist on boards of directors. He can be reached at [email protected]. James Gillies, PhD (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), is Professor Emeritus at the Schulich School of Business, York University, where he serves as Chair of the Canada-Russia Corporate Governance Program.




Into the Boardroom


Book Description

Mysterious and powerful, for decades America's boardrooms have remained closed to all but a handful of director in the club. Now, former Fortune 500 exectuves Dorothy Light and Kathleen Pushor reveal an insider's look at what goes on in the boardroom and how you can get ther. CEOs and directors of some of America's most prestigious corporations share their stories of what really goes on behind closed dorrs, who gets selected to sit on a board and who doesn't, and why being a part of this influential group should be the goal of today's up and coming executives, professionals, and community leaders.




Boardroom Secrets


Book Description

Boardroom Secrets focuses on the, processes, and behaviours for a board of directors to ensure good governance. The book focuses on behavioral aspects of governance such as how to evaluate and process information provided to the board, how to critically question without de-motivating, and how to balance interests of different stakeholders.




Naked in the Boardroom


Book Description

Renowned media executive Robin Wolaner delivers the 80 Naked Truths businesswomen need to develop presence, seize power, and achieve success. Straight-talking and sensible, Naked in the Boardroom explains how to achieve more: more opportunities, more money, more notches on the corporate belt without sacrificing your integrity or losing your identity. In delicious, bite-sized nuggets, Robin Wolaner's Naked Truths provide universal and instantly gratifying lessons for advancing your career. They can be put into action regardless of your age, experience, industry, or whether you are a one-woman start-up or a big-company employee. Drawing on her own career in magazine publishing and media development, Wolaner shows you how to succeed because of, rather than despite, your unique background and personality. With humor, attitude, and fierce intelligence, she reveals: The keys to successful negotiation on behalf of the company or yourself What great public speakers know and tricks you can use When and how to burn your career plan How to do the right thing in the gray zones of business ethics Effective ways to recover from a mistake Unusual wisdom for hiring and firing -- and for being hired and fired And much more Peppered with candid stories drawn from Wolaner's life, as well as those of other trailblazing women, Naked in the Boardroom is both essential and inspiring. It provides invaluable wisdom for anyone who sees success on the horizon, but who wants help getting there on her own terms.




From Storeroom to Boardroom


Book Description

***BUSINESS BOOK AWARDS 2022 SHORTLISTED TITLE*** An insider’s view of the challenges that big businesses face in the developing world: the opportunities, pitfalls, political and personal challenges involved. Babs Omotowa has spent his life rejecting the status quo. His own career disproves the unthinking perception that Africans underperform in global businesses, and his insistence that issues such as community development, corruption, transparency and pollution belong on the corporate agenda alongside financial targets has helped big businesses to revolutionize their approach in the developing world. The remarkable story of ‘Hurricane Babs’ – from storeroom keeper to global VP – showcases the issues that big businesses face in developing countries and reveals how multinational companies and leaders can best navigate these challenges: with integrity and courage.




Bury My Heart at Conference Room B


Book Description

#3 New York Times Advice/How-To Bestseller #7 Wall Street Journal Nonfiction Bestseller "This book is game changing in a way I have never seen in a business book. I learned about myself and gained new insights into the work I've been doing for thirty years. It is a spectacular read." – John Riccitiello, CEO, Electronic Arts This is not a management book. This is a book for managers. Ever have the feeling that no matter how rewarding your job is that there's an entirely different level of success and fulfillment available to you? Lingering in the mist, just out of reach… There is, and Stan Slap is going to help you get it. You hold in your hands the book that entirely redraws the potential of being a manager. It will show you how to gain the one competency most critical to achieving business impact, but it won't stop there. This book will put a whole new level of meaning into your job description. You will never really work for your company until your company really works for you. Bury My Heart at Conference Room B is about igniting the massive power of any manager's emotional commitment to his or her company-worth more than financial, intellectual and physical commitment combined. Sometimes companies get this from their managers in the early garage days or in times of tremendous gain, but it's almost unheard of to get it on a sustained, self-reinforced basis. Of course your company is only going to get it if you're willing to give it. Slap proves that emotional commitment comes from the ability to live your deepest personal values at work and then provides a remarkable process that allows you to use your own values to achieve tremendous success. This is not soft stuff; it is the stuff of hard-core results. Bury My Heart at Conference Room B is the highest-rated management development solution at a number of the world's highest-rated companies—companies that don't include "patience" on their list of corporate values. It has been exhaustively researched and bench tested with tens of thousands of real managers in more than seventy countries. You'll hear directly from managers about how this legendary method has transformed their careers and their lives. As Big as It Gets Stan Slap is doing nothing less than making the business case for a manager's humanity-for every manager and the companies that depend on them. Bury My Heart at Conference Room B gives managers the urgency to change their world and the energy to do it. It will stir the soul, race the heart, and throb the foot used for acceleration. Buckle Up. We're Going Off-Road. Slap is smart, provocative, wickedly funny and heartfelt. He fearlessly takes on some of the most cherished myths of management for the illogic they are and celebrates the experience of being a manager in all of its potential and potential weirdness. And he talks to managers like they really talk to themselves.




Board and Director Evaluations


Book Description

A board evaluation is the most powerful tool in the governance arsenal - and one that is rarely used to its full potential. Today, sophisticated directors are increasingly demanding more from their board and director evaluations, eschewing their tired old board surveys for new approaches that effectively tap into directors' insights and good thinking - and produce meaningful outcomes that can take a board from good to great and keep a great board vibrant.The book begins by describing typical outcomes other boards have achieved from taking this approach and points out that the most important element in a meaningful board evaluation is a boardroom champion - someone in a board leadership position who's genuinely committed to excellence, to making his/her board the best it can be. From there, the key features of a genuinely worthwhile board evaluation are outlined in depth- from the creation of the interview protocols, through to the development of the Action Plan. Board 2.0, an innovative exercise that engages directors and executives in designing the optimal board to govern the company in the future - is also discussed in detail; any board can benefit from learning about this exciting new approach and incorporating it as a component of a comprehensive board evaluation process. The final chapters focus on individual director evaluation - designing a meaningful peer review process that delivers constructive and actionable feedback; sophisticated directors deserve no less. It also introduces the New Director 360, an innovative practice that may be a useful final phase of any director orientation program.




War in the Boardroom


Book Description

Renowned business gurus Al and Laura Ries give a blow-by-blow account of the battle between management and marketing—and argue that the solution lies not in what we think but in how we think There's a reason why the marketing programs of the auto industry, the airline industry, and many other industries are not only ineffective, but bogged down by chaos and confusion. Management minds are not on the same wavelength as marketing minds. What makes a good chief executive? A person who is highly verbal, logical, and analytical. Typical characteristics of a left brainer. What makes a good marketing executive? A person who is highly visual, intuitive, and holistic. Typical characteristics of a right brainer. These different mind-sets often result in conflicting approaches to branding, and the Ries' thought-provoking observations—culled from years on the front lines—support this conclusion, including: Management deals in reality. Marketing deals in perception. Management demands better products. Marketing demands different products. Management deals in verbal abstractions. Marketing deals in visual hammers. Using some of the world's most famous brands and products to illustrate their argument, the authors convincingly show why some brands succeed (Nokia, Nintendo, and Red Bull) while others decline (Saturn, Sony, and Motorola). In doing so, they sound a clarion call: to survive in today's media-saturated society, managers must understand how to think like marketers—and vice versa. Featuring the engaging, no-holds-barred writing that readers have come to expect from Al and Laura Ries, War in the Boardroom offers a fresh look at a perennial problem and provides a game plan for companies that want to break through the deadlock and start reaping the rewards.