Here are the most pressing queries for boards to be posing to management, according to Ram Charan and Dennis Carey, vice chairman of Korn Ferry.
• What is keeping the CEO awake at night, and what can the board do to help?
• What are the top three to five priorities of management, and what is blocking them?
• Are the blockers surmountable? If not, why?
• Do we have the right team and a truly value-added board? If not, why are they still here?
• Do we know our competitors’ teams? Who are they? Are they better than ours?
• What threats can destroy us? Digital delay? Inflation? Wrong strategy? Disruptors? ESG?
• Are we aware of investor mix and what it portends?
• Are we smarter than the analysts? If not, why not? How can we correct that?
• Do we have cyber protection designed by real experts? If not, what can be done?
• Are we complacent? If so, how do we correct before obsolescence sets in?