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FOREWORD

There is no doubt in my mind, after three decades of working with chairs, CEOs, and boards, that we need to unlock more of the potential of our boards around the world. Yves and Keeley call for a new blueprint for more effective and strategic boards. Chasing profit growth and being chased on governance regulation doesn't necessarily make for sustainable boards and employers that are fit for the future. We need more strategic, self-aware, and curious boards with higher levels of consciousness and societal responsibility. Yves and Keeley dig into the issues with great candor and stark analysis. They invite us to consider a different framing for boards and offer practical insights on what it's going to take. Boards are much-needed "meaning makers" or "conscience keepers," as Keeley and Yves call them. We need them on the balcony, taking on a more expansive identity with more strategic foresight and, to be frank, adding more value. To do that, boards need to elevate and modulate; they need the courage to reimagine their role and purpose. This book compellingly invites us to spark the collective imagination of boards. It is a "must read" to unlock the potential of boards whatever their sector, footprint, or even ownership. While it shines a light on the "illusion of growth" in public markets, I'd say many of its lessons are transversal for boards.

On first reading, I empathized with those CEOs discussed in the early chapters who are highlighted for their failures. The analysis is tough and revealing. Yet, I also came to see that Yves and Keeley are pointing to the inevitability of disappointing investors. Given the conflicting demands made of CEOs, Yves and Keeley are in fact acknowledging the "mission impossible" given to CEOs, and they are helping us to see an alternative way of viewing stewardship and governance evolution.

I've witnessed CEOs who go through the motions with their boards, and I've seen others who really leverage their board to enrich their thinking. The latter tend to share what they are wrestling with. They focus on the polarities and ethical dilemmas and go deep into what triggers them, what excites them—their sources of hope and fears. All of that requires psychological safety and "holding" in the boardroom. If you try and discuss such topics when the board is flying too low, it's seen as weakness. But if boards elevate and fly at a strategic "altitude," they get to the exploratory space where new insights are more likely to emerge. We need boards that resemble the wisdom councils of old times: wisdom seekers who create a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. It's great to hear Yves and Keeley calling for boards to take their full space as curious custodians of strategy, not just rubber-stamping strategic plans that all too often have a time horizon that, coincidentally, reflects the CEO's anticipated tenure. Then what? We need more strategic imagination from boards in their stewardship.

This book explores the economic pressures and short-term circularity that too often limit the imagination of CEOs and boards. Public market expectations make our quoted company boards captive to quarterly reporting and proven growth outlooks. Indeed, we do need our boards to retain a healthy degree of achievement drive and to have growth mindsets, but they need to be balanced, sustainable, and strategically grounded. This special book goes further. It's not just a study on the impact of the "growth curse," but it also probes who is sitting around the table making these decisions and what motivates these individuals to join boards in the first place. To me, the old phrase "servant leadership" is relevant, with the emphasis on both the "serving" and the "leadership." Grandiosity, CV building, and identity preservation are not the motivations we need around the board table when facing such burning planetary and social issues as we now so clearly do.

Yves and Keeley walk us through the traits needed in the people who are our strategic custodians on boards.

A year ago, when I stepped down from the role of chairwoman of Egon Zehnder (EZ), a global leadership firm, I had a strong calling to leverage all my "learning on the job" and from decades of advising boards to help other chairs and boards unlock more of their potential. We already had a fabulous board retreat, which we run with the University of St. Gallen, focusing on knowledge, skills, and tradecraft for board members. I had cofounded a CEO development program run by EZ and its partner, Mobius, a decade ago as well. But I still had a sense that chairs were being underserved when it came to leadership development. Why does our personal development stop when we join boards or become chairs? So, we set up a three-day program on "Chairing Boards from Within," to engage in deep development work, where cohorts of international chairs explore purpose, identity, motivations, and patterns, both their own and those of their boards.