Category:

After our long journey researching and thinking about sustainable corporate longevity, the need to meld the worlds of strategy and governance has become all too apparent to us. However, it's worth noting that, to date, these two important fields have remained resolutely distinct in both theory and practice. In the academic world, strategy scholars rarely venture into governance territory, and vice versa, while in corporate life, the separation is clear, with CEOs and senior executives viewing governance as a regulatory requirement and the board's involvement in strategy being cursory at best.

We hope our work will encourage more people to recognize the critical link between the two fields of strategy and governance when it comes to sustainable corporate longevity that benefits the many, not the few, stakeholders.

The fact that this book focuses on publicly listed companies with an Anglo-American-type governance structure is not an oversight or a matter of ignorance; it is a conscious choice we made. Fairly early on in our research, we realized that trying to write this book to cover different types of ownership structure and different models of governance would lead to something unwieldy that would be difficult to follow and extremely long. It seemed to make sense instead to concentrate on the ownership and governance structures that tend to result in the greatest challenges and where the risk of poor strategic decisions is most likely. Having said that, while we have framed the growth curse problem in terms of listed companies with a non-executive board, the solutions we propose to strengthen companies for renewal and prosperity could apply equally well to companies with other ownership and governance structures.

The book is organized into three parts. The first contains the chapters that are concerned with the challenges of the growth curse. Chapter 1 sets the context by looking at the tensions between the urge for growth and the difficulty of finding genuine growth options. While it would be easy to simply put the blame for short-termism on CEOs, chapter 2 examines the pressures that modern CEOs are under, while chapter 3 outlines how those pressures can lead to behaviors that the board should look out for, because they destroy value and ultimately bring about a company's downfall.

Whereas the book's first part explains the magnitude of the problem, the second part is where the manifesto for change begins with a series of chapters relating to the role of the board. Chapter 4 looks at expanding the board's mandate and provides a blueprint for what would constitute a more strategic board. But the ability of a board to perform this more strategic role successfully is dependent on the board being composed of individuals with specific attributes and skills and their ability to work together effectively, all of which are examined in chapter 5. Chapter 6 moves on to the work of the board, specifically by defining the long-term strategy of the company and the tools that can aid in achieving this. In chapter 7, we describe the evolution of strategy failure so that boards can assess the quality of the strategy process in their companies and be aware of, and act on, impending problems before they become full-blown crises. And in chapter 8, we explore how to assess whether the right CEO is in place and the critical factors in selecting a new CEO. We close this chapter by sketching out the working relationship between the board, the CEO, and the executive team.

The final part of the book is where we delve into the specifics of the collaboration between the board and executive in relation to strategic renewal. The importance of the board understanding a company's strategic assets and how they affect both the short-and long-term strategic options open to a firm is the subject of chapter 9. And still focusing on strategic options, chapter 10 investigates how the extent to which a company has strategic sensitivity, leadership unity, and resource fluidity will also determine the strategic paths open to the firm. Together, these two chapters highlight the critical role of strategic governance in guiding a firm toward more sustainable growth and long-term viability. But even the most robust strategic options will only be achievable in a strong and positive culture. Chapter 11 wraps up our examination of strategic renewal by describing how boards can assess the level of energy and commitment in their firms and by outlining suggestions to help revitalize a broken culture.