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Transcript

A Board That's Fit for Purpose · Succession and Transition

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hi there, my name is Chris Andehill.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Andrew Coleman.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Melanie.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: We've created the Elders Council for Social Entrepreneurs to explore succession, leadership, well-being, and money.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Navigating the good times and the bad.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: Wonderful to see you all.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for joining for this session.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_03: Just to say that it would be interesting for us to know why you felt that this was an important session for you, because you all know, I think, that we believe a succession and transition is something that really isn't very well covered.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: And often the board has many parts to play in that.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_03: I've had the privilege of knowing Dan for quite a long time.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_03: And I know he's a very stoical and dedicated man because he supports the New York Mets, however well or badly they do.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: And I happen to know that of recent times that's turned around for them.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: They're doing much better.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: But so many people talk about making money work for good.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: But really, what Dan has been doing for so long, more than 22 years, is to undermine some of the evils that come about because of global supply chains, mainly to do with forced labour, child labour, and other kinds of modern slavery.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_03: And so his work is not just important, but he's had had many uh iterations during that time.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_03: And so his experience with boards has been many and various.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_03: And so I'd like to ask you, Dan, if you would just give us your thoughts on the issue of the role of boards within the social enterprise environment, please.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_03: Over to you, Dan.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you, Andrea, and Chris and Mel in particular for the invitation.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_06: And hi, everybody, to those I know and those I don't.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_06: It's a pleasure and an honor to be able to speak to you today.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_06: And I certainly hope that what I say, which is based on my personal experience and not like an academic study of boards and social enterprise, is thought-provoking and maybe stimulates some questions and gives you some stuff to think about and for us to discuss.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_06: I will speak from sort of three phases of my life with boards and social enterprises.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_06: One, my own succession, my moving out of the organization I ran for 16 years into a board role in that organization.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_06: So phase two is my role as a board member of that organization and other boards.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_06: I'm also on two other nonprofit boards and two for-profit boards.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_06: And then phase three is what I've learned since I left my social enterprise, my nonprofit organization called Verite, where I worked for 16 years, and moving into my current job, which is as an impact venture capitalist.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_06: And as a result, I've learned a lot about how venture capital and private sector investment and equity investment in companies think about boards.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_06: And so I'm on two for-profit boards as well.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_06: And I have found that to open my own mind in my understanding of what's ideal, not necessarily only possible at present, but ideal in the relationship between founders, CEOs, executive directors, and board members.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_06: So from those three kind of phases or perspectives, I've generated what I consider to be some hypotheses, which I'll try and point out along the way, which may be operating at the level of so obvious you will yawn at them.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_06: But for me, they were meaningful learnings along the way.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_06: So maybe that'll have that impact on you as well.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_06: First and foremost, I was at my organization for 16 years.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_06: The reasons I left were both institutional and personal.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_06: Personal meaning, kind of stage of life.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_06: I've been doing it for a long time.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_06: I tend to move on after a period of getting to an organization to maturity.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_06: And then institutional, shout out to the Schwab Foundation.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_06: I was part of the inaugural executive education course at the Kennedy School and the Harvard Business School, which really opened my mind to the way in which an organization might be transitioned into a kind of a systems intervention.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_06: And so I went looking for systems interventions, and that facilitated my interest in moving out of my organization into a different role, the role I play now.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_06: But what it meant for me before I left Verite was that I was open to leaving.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_06: But importantly, as I reflect on it, I was also really feeling guilty about leaving and nervous about it and guilty to the board members who were serving because I'd asked them to.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_06: And here I was going to leave them high and dry without me, and also to my staff.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_06: And as a result of my feeling guilty and ambivalent, I really didn't talk about it with the board until a sort of a late date when it became a much more reality.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_06: And therefore, I think I started to have private conversations with a few board members who were understanding, but we didn't make it an institutional conversation between me and the board until such a time as I had really another plan.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_06: And that led to, I think, real shock on the part of the board and I think some dismay and certainly a lot of nervousness.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_06: I now reflect on that nervousness as a board member with other organizations whose CEOs may or may not be transitioning.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_06: And so, from the perspective of the CEO who's looking to a board and trying to make a transition happen, recognize it as a moment of high vulnerability for the organization from the board perspective.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_06: And indeed, it speaks to the need that I was not successful in achieving to have a regular check-in, not about what is technically and mechanistically called succession planning, but really is more a temperature check between the CEO, the founder, the executive director, and the board.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_06: And again, that may or may not happen in your organizations, but I don't think I facilitated that as well as it probably could have.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_06: Having said that, it all worked out beautifully.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_06: And that leads me into my phase two.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_06: The board that I then joined as Verite, we discussed as I was leaving whether I would just write off into the sunset, as it were, or whether I would join the board and stay.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_06: I was raised particularly by a father who was in the nonprofit world that once you left the leadership of an organization, you just left and you'd give space to the incoming person.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_06: That was what I assumed I would do.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_06: But I remember my first conversation with the recruiter who selected my successor, Sean McDonald, who's absolutely wonderful.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_06: He thought for sure that was crazy and I should stick around because I was a real useful source of institutional history.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_06: And I think the board, my then board and my now board colleagues felt very strongly that I should stay too.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_06: And that was a real surprise to me.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_06: But something I was willing to do.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_06: I think I had confidence in myself as I'm not a micromanager.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_06: I didn't really want to get in the way of what Sean was doing.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_06: If I still wanted to do Sean's job, I would have just stayed.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_06: So I felt confident that at least for me, I was going to be a good, respectful board member who provides the right kind of space.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_06: But I do reflect that it really should have been and still should be up to Sean, to my successor, as to whether he really wants me around.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_06: And so that's the way I at least thought of it.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_06: Now, as a board member and as someone who's gone through it, and as someone who's exploring a couple of other transitions in a couple of other organizations, I recognize that the stay camp and the write off into the sunset camp and the stay on the board camp, they both can marshal lots of scientific evidence that their approach is right.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_06: There's no real consensus about what works and what doesn't.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_06: Everyone thinks they have consensus.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_06: And I think as I've explored it, there's lots of different viewpoints.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_06: And so there's a piece that is a board responsibility, which is not merely to try and make the right balance between the new and the old person during the moment of transition, but then to devote the kind of time and attention that is absolutely necessary after the transition happens to make sure that relationship continues and that the incoming CEO has the support that he or she needs, particularly vis-a-vis the original person.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_06: And again, that's a fairly obvious thing to say, but I think, at least in my experience, it wasn't a conscious thing that we undertook and did.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_06: It was something we more expected to happen and figured we'd manage as time went on.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_06: And in reality, the board members of an organization that is experiencing transition really ought to be thinking about how they explicitly staff that transition effectively.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_06: What kind of committee structure is necessary?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_06: What kind of conflict do they anticipate?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_06: What kind of structures do they put in place so that kind of conflict can be removed?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_06: Again, not reflecting on my own experience as much.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_06: I hope Sean feels the same way, but I realize it was a gap that we left as we made that transition, and that I'm, at least as I think about my board service going forward, we're trying to fill.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_06: Another really interesting thing happened once I left the CEO role, which is I tried while I was CEO to get the board to own functions and own processes.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_06: And one of the processes that I really wanted to own was the sort of dominating process, the revitalization of the board itself, the identification of new members.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_06: But that really didn't happen that much.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_06: It was still really pretty much my job and my role as the CEO to bring in the new people and to find out who they were doing, in addition to everything else I was trying to do.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_06: And it's absolutely wonderful that now I'm not the CEO role anymore.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_06: A new board chair, a wonderful woman named Liddy, has taken that on.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_06: And the board is now in a position where it really is owning itself and its governance role.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_06: Not that we had bad governance, we didn't.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_06: Not that we didn't have a supportive board, we did.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_06: We had a wonderfully supportive board when I was CEO, but now it's much more of an independent actor rather than the serving at the behest of or at the pleasure of or because we're friends with Dan.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_06: It's really a much more professional outfit, which I think is just a truly wonderful thing.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_06: And among other things that Lydia has managed to pull off is to really diversify the membership in terms of age, in terms of racial and ethnic background, in terms of sector.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_06: And that makes the organization, the board itself, much more well-structured at this point.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_06: And I have watched myself become a more and more minor part of the organization as time has gone on, which is mostly a very good thing because it means truly the organization moved on from me as the kind of core of it to a much more multi-stakeholder held set of institutions and processes.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_06: There was one other key moment there, which is the last point I'll make about that kind of board service phase two of my conversation, where the chair who managed my transition, a guy called Michael, was leaving, and we hadn't yet identified Liddy, the incoming chair.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_06: And Michael asked me if I wanted to be the chair.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_06: And my reaction was very explicitly, I thought about it, but then I realized the organization did very much have my fingerprints all over it.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_06: It was very much built with my DNA in it.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_06: And I was pretty clear that was not a good thing to go forward.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_06: Like it didn't need more of a me as the board chair.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_06: What it really needed was more and diverse voices.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_06: And so I deferred and luckily found Lady who was in this chair who's really diverse by the board, which has been wonderful.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_06: I'll say one other thing that happened during my transition.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_06: I went from running Verite to being on the board to working first within a foundation and now in this venture capital role that is housed within kind of a family office.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_06: And the foundation made a grant to the organization when I left that I jokingly describe as my ransom or my dowry, I guess my dowry payment.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_06: And that meant that the incoming CEO really had a cash cushion that was a wonderful thing to have.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_06: So we are thinking at other boards I'm on to really leverage transitions into moments of recognition of the outgoing CEO.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_06: And it's a kind of a fundraising moment as well, at least that it worked for us.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_06: For me, there was the experience of my own transition.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_06: There was the now being on my own board and seeing it take on a new identity as I left the space a little bit, which has been wonderful.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_06: And now the third thing I'll reflect on is my experience in the for-profit world, really.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_06: So I'm still on three nonprofit boards, but also on two for-profit boards.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_06: And again, sort of an obvious thing to say, but it really is true that there's a continuation of the trajectory from serving because the founder asked me to, or because we are devoted to the founder in service of the founder or the nonprofit CEO to in the for-profit world a much more of a mutual obligation, a set of mutual obligations, as an explicit way.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_06: And of course, that's because the people on the board tend to have money in the company, right?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_06: So there's a real stake in a different way.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_06: It's not just an emotional or sort of an issue or impact or an stake, it's an actual financial stake.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_06: And as a result, there's kind of literally an ownership, but also more figuratively and emotionally an ownership by the board of the organization.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_06: And there's a real understanding that a founder or an incoming CEO in the for-profit institution is obligated to the governors in a way that is, I think, distinct from the way in which, at least in my experience, the nonprofit space has operated.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_06: It's not as if we're not aware in the nonprofit world, or again, my experience, not to speak for you all, that we have obligations to our board and the board plays the role of key governance, but rather there's a greater emphasis and a sharper set of mutual obligations that I think is actually very healthy.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_06: Having said that, the unhealthy aspect of it is there's also in the for-profit world a kind of a constant evaluation as to whether the CEO is the right person.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_06: And classically and famously, there's these evil board members who go in and rip the organization from the CEO's or the founder's heart.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_06: And that's not necessarily a good thing.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_06: It's captured within the ways of working in the for-profit space.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_06: So that it's most aggressive.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_06: It can be, I think, quite dysfunctional or quite in service of one stakeholder, meaning a board member who has a particular speed stake, financial stake, at the expense of the broader impact or the broader smooth running of the organization.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_06: So that's not so good.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_06: Mutual obligation piece remains, I think, quite useful.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_06: But there's also a recognition on for-profit boards that the sort of post-investment moment, so you make a contribution in the for-profit world, you make an investment, is really only the start and the easiest piece of the relationship.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_06: The relationship then really does explicitly on both sides carry on to an expectation among board members and investors that you supplement what the CEO is doing well or not doing well, that you fill in the gaps, that you not merely show up for board meetings and opine, and then you not merely work when asked by the CEO or the founder for help.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_06: You are really part and parcel of the operations in a way that, again, is a function of the financial stake that one has invested in the need as an investor to protect and do fiduciary duty to the money that you're implementing with.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_06: But it's also very practical.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_06: And it's also a really nice framing of one of the end stages of that trajectory from flexible service at the behest of and in service of the founder to a set of mutual obligations, which I think I've experienced now both in that for-profit world, but also very much as I saw my own transition from CEO of Verite to a board member as the Verite board itself has developed in a very successful way.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_06: Though that is my personal history of boards and succession.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_06: I hope it struck a level of interest and depth for you all.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_06: I see there are some questions here, eager to answer them, Andrea, as you tell me and any other questions that come to mind.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_06: Overall, I think it's a fascinating.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_06: I do know that there's a lot of good work done on it in the nonprofit space from Bridge Stand and Board Source, particularly on the transition side.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_06: But I also come back to this idea that it's really depends on the people involved.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_06: And like almost everything we do in all of our lives, it's about personal and interpersonal relationships and the management of those relationships.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_03: Dan, thanks so much for that so far.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_03: And what's so fascinating about your experience is that you have had a board as a social entrepreneur, you have been on a social entrepreneur board, and the difference between a board for social enterprise and a board for a for-profit organization.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_03: So I think your insights are really helpful.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_03: I've just learned several things about it from you.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_03: I know that I'd really love to hear Alex's question.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_08: Thank you so much, Andrea.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_08: My question is about how do you manage the transition by focusing on the well-being aspects of the organization that's take all the team, not just the board.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_08: And how do we align this transition to keeping and all the vision, the mission, uh, the internal cultural aspects of your organization, to keep this creative capital that you had generates and all the assets that you have built as a CEO.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_06: Ooh, what a deep question.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_06: And I think the answer depends on how the organization is doing, right?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_06: Look, as I said, I experienced mostly what I perceive to be reasonably positive transitions, and I know there are lots of the other kind.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_06: And if I speak from the for-profit world, we're an impact investor, and we have certain structural, legal documented ways to ensure that at least our money as an investor is still used for the purposes of the impact that we intended.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_06: But again, in the for-profit world, there's lots of other investors, and many of them bring more money to the table.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_06: And if the organization decides to divert its attention from the impact that we were focused on to something else, there's very little that can be done.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_06: Our solution to that, and it relates to transition or really moments of non-transition, is to make the impact so compelling in terms of the business model of the organization that there's no reason to go in a different direction.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_06: And I think the same thing holds in the nonprofit or the social enterprise world as well.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_06: To the extent that the impact is really built into the success of the organization, there's less reason to divert than if it's a failure or if it's not built in, right?
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_06: And certainly, look, as a board, the first thing we are looking for in the nonprofit space is someone who's going to really embrace and embody the mission.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_06: And so it becomes almost preeminent among all other characteristics.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_06: Sure, you can fundraise, but do you care about this particular issue?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_06: Will you be an adequate public representative of this particular issue?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_06: And therefore, are you qualified to take on this new role?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_06: Having said that, I think we have to recognize, and boards have to be really precise about during transitions what gaps are we're looking to fill.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_06: I had a certain orientation and profile.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_06: I would say, certainly towards the end of my tenure at Verite, I was less interested in solving certain kinds of institutional issues, I would say.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_06: And luckily we brought in someone who could.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_06: Again, I don't know that it was explicit when we made that decision, but there has to be an explicit recognition and we have to have an honest conversation as a board, probably with the outgoing CEO, but maybe not.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_06: Maybe just with the recruiter, certainly with the incoming person, about which aspects really need to be filled.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_06: So I'm answering your question less from the preservation and almost like the gap-filling piece.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_06: And so I don't know if that's I'm eager to hear your reactions and your experience in that as well.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_03: Dan, thanks so much.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_03: I know that David and Bradley have a sort of similar question.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_03: So, Bradley, as I invited you first, I'll leave you the floor.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_05: Dan, good to see you.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_05: I really resonated with what you were saying earlier about that kind of passive posture where you serve at the behest of the CEO and you wait for meetings to be called and you show up, and your members might be not as actively engaged, not really owning their role on the board.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_05: They're in coasting mode, or in more pejorative terms, might be, quote, asleep at the wheel because they're just assuming the CEO will do everything and they're just showing up and putting in their time at meetings.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_05: That was certainly very resonant with my experience.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_05: And it sounds like maybe it was with yours at a certain stage, but then you describe the shift.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_05: And there's this new board that really is owning its space and in a much more active posture and leaning in a different way and not just coasting and waiting for the CEO to do everything.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_05: What was that shift like?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_05: And what were some of the steps, if there were any, that fostered that shift?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_05: David, is there anything you wanted to say or phrase that differently?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_05: But I really resonate with that point and wanted to dig in a bit more on it.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly the same point and from a position of being on a few boards that I would like to make that shift with.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_04: How do I cause that to happen?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_04: What did she do?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_04: What's the magic formula?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_06: First of all, I wouldn't say Verite's earlier board was asleep at the Switch.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_06: I think they were just more reactive, right?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_06: It was more, I knew well what I could count on this person for.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_06: And that person would pick up the phone and answer, right?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_06: But it was really like a time budget question.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, Brad, to your point, go up and then occasionally in between meetings, do stuff often very important.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_06: I should also point out that there's always a kind of 20-80 split, I think, almost in everything in life.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_06: And you get kind of 80% of the effort from 20% of the people that you engage, be they clients or in some ways board members.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_06: And of course, in the board, it's generally the board chair.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_06: And I also want to reflect that there are natural stages of evolution, right?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_06: And so, in some ways, the challenge that we all face as social change people is to push hard enough, but not so hard that everybody just gets demoralized, exhausted, and gives up.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_06: And I think the same is true with boards.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_06: So boards have seasons, and boards have moments of maturity, and boards have growth paths and growth trajectories on their own.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_06: And I guess my reflection is that much as in when I say my personal life, I really only change when I have to.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_06: And that was not as much the board embracing the opportunity, as much as I think the board responding to a worry or an implicit understanding that there was some risk as the organization made a transition from someone who they'd learned to rely on me to someone who they didn't yet know that they could rely on.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_06: Turns out they could and can, and he's doing amazing work and it's continued to grow and develop.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_06: But it's almost as if, at least in that experience, I don't want to overstate it, but a kind of a bit of a shock to the system that says, hold on a minute.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_06: We know if we want a different future, we need to make it happen.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_06: It also takes leadership.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_06: It takes an individual who's going to step up and decide to spend the time, as Liddy has, and decide to leverage her kind of personal exertion into the world.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_06: And then I think the last thing I would say is allocating the time, it's almost a recruitment process.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_06: But for the people on the board, it's really a matter of having personal conversations and focusing them on the needs of the organization and putting them in a situation where they can succeed and also not expecting more than they're going to give.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_06: On our board currently, there's a lot of new people who are really motivated, in part because they're new, and there's some of us who've been on a while who are still in coasting mode a little bit.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_06: So I wouldn't want to suggest it's completely changed.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_06: But as you make the revitalization process happen, and if you bring on the right new people, they're just going to be pumped.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_06: And so as I explored my own trajectory of it, it was like from a really good, stable board with a great culture, but that had been around for a while, to one that now has a few new people and there's just like some tension.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_06: And if you get the right personalities, they're willing to throw a few kind of more controversial statements in as well in the kind of safe space.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Dan, so much.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: Cecilia, I know you have a question.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_11: Thank you very much for that sharing.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_11: I know that it's quite difficult for the founder to transition because it's really required a shared plan and shared process of the whole organization.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_11: But my question is I love to hear from you.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_11: What is your reflections of the Two-table model which actually sometimes require a time frame of overlapping from the transition of the founder and the new CEO.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_11: Because I think we have a lot of discussion about this, that sometimes it's really difficult for the founder to just drastically move away from the organization because the wealth of knowledge and history is quite important to also to pass on.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_11: So, in your experience, how you manage this kind of transitions?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_11: Is there any overlap?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_11: Is the board involved in the plan and how you are able to pass it to the new CEO?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_06: My main reaction is I think it has, again, so much to do with the individuals involved, right?
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_06: I think when it works in part because the people involved want to make it work and are facilitated to have a conversation that is an effective one.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_06: And we know the difference between effective conversations and those that are less effective.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_06: And also the right kind of personal relationship has to be in place between the incoming person and the outgoing person.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_06: I think overlap can be really powerful.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_06: It can also go on too long.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_06: I think my processes are probably too fast.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_06: As I said, I was ambivalent about bringing my board into it.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_06: And so by then I had another thing I really wanted to do.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_06: And so I stayed involved, which is great, but I probably didn't give the board quite enough time.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_06: So those are some thoughts.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_06: One other thought.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_06: I think it's really hard to decide before the transition happens how long it should last.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_06: And that means that there's an uncertainty.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_06: It's an uncertainty that the board has to live with, and the staff have to live with, and the incoming person probably has to live with.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_06: And again, the only way I can think about making sure that's managed and the way in which, in fact, the literature does suggest is that you have really an active conflict management process.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_06: And maybe there's no conflict.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_06: You have to be ready for there to be a sort of a disagreement or ready for there to be a way in which this isn't quite meshing or it creates some tension.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_06: And then as a board, I think that we just can't sort of assume that's all going to be fine.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_06: And it probably can't be only the board chair in relationship to both people.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_06: So those are some thoughts, but I don't believe there's one way into it.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_06: I believe it's part of a dialogue and a relationship management process.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_03: Has anyone any other questions to come forward at this moment?
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_10: I'm curious to know in people's experience, what might go wrong and how can you avoid like when you've got the new CEO, I'm in a situation like you, I'm still involved, but stepped aside, still around, don't know how long I'll be around, might be around a long time, might not.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_10: Where are the areas of tension?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_10: Where can things go wrong?
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_10: Where can it get messy?
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_10: And how can that be avoided?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_03: Claire, are you thinking about the role of the board in that specifically?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_03: Or are you thinking about the ways in which the outgoing founder or CEO relates to the new leadership?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_03: Are you thinking about the role the boards can play in that?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_10: I don't mind whether it's the CEO and the new CEO and the outgoing founder, if they're staying involved in the organization, need to be able to work together.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_10: So I just welcome any heads up on this is a safe space on potential areas of conflict and how might that be mitigated.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_10: And the same might go with the refresh of a board.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_10: It's new energy, it's a different relationship.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_10: They'll have different loyalties being built with the new CEO, not with the outgoing, maybe one day possibly founder.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_10: So I'm just curious about that.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_10: How do you manage tensions, conflicts, what might come up?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_10: Any ideas?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_06: I think the very complicated concept of organizational culture is one way in which it can go wrong.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_06: And I don't know that I have any brilliant ideas as to what you do about that, except I know I felt very strongly when I was leaving my organization that the culture was very strong.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_06: How could I define that?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_06: I probably could if I needed to.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_06: So it felt that the organization had a kind of robustness.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_06: And also that the culture on the board was very strong and very aligned with and supportive of the culture in the organization, the kind of intangibles almost of the way of working.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_06: And we did explore a couple of really compelling candidates during the transition process who I think we all were loose-sided would have not fit within the culture that we had.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_06: And there are times when organizations need a cultural refresh, right?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_06: In my experience, the one I transitioned, it didn't.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_06: But as I think about the ways in which things could go wrong, it's bringing in someone who, unless you're intentionally doing it, bringing in someone whose culture of fit is a kind of a poor one.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_06: It may be that you want to bring in a new person because you want to blow things up or it's really not going well, or there's real dysfunction in the outgoing CEO is a cause of that dysfunction.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_06: But it's also possible that things are going pretty well and you want to make sure that culture doesn't break down.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_06: But that's my reflection, Andrew.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_06: I'm sure other people have reflections.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_03: It's almost an additional question to the one that Bradley and David raised about being certain about maintaining the mission and vision is how to maintain the culture or identify something that isn't quite right with the culture and maybe beginning to change it.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_03: Has anybody any response to the question that Claire put?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_11: For me, I think what is important from the very beginning is the whole organization, from the staff to everybody in the organization needs to understand that we are in the process.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_11: And everybody share the journey of the transition.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_11: I think it's from the very beginning.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_11: People need the organization whole need to understand that they are undergoing transition and there are some changes that will happen.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_11: And they should be part of this, of the whole process itself.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_11: And need really to be prepared for whatever journey that we have to take as an organization.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Cecilia.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_03: I know that Mel would like to say something now, Mel.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_09: I do have a question, but I know that Kurt had a question in the chat earlier.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_09: So maybe before I ask my question, maybe Kurt could come in with his question.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_07: Thank you.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_07: My question was I have transitioned out of being the founder director after 40 years.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_07: And I transitioned to an individual who is 30 years younger than I and of an entirely different ethnic group, which exactly matches where we do our work.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_07: I faced two transitions.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_07: One was that this old CEO could get out and a new one could get in.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_07: Second transition was how do I help a board move into the 21st century and not think we're going to do business as usual?
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_07: And the hot point for that one is that the energy and excitement of people around 30 is not to sit on a board.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_07: The energy and excitement of people is for them to do what they're interested in.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_07: And if it fits with your mandate, that's cool.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_07: That requires an entirely different approach to governance.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_07: I wondered if you had some comments on that.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_06: Man, I would love to hear more of your experience.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_06: I guess my only comment is it it has been a process that we have recently been better at than the organizations that are involved in at finding some generational diversity on the board.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_06: It's a sort of a form of diversity in the sense that you're having few points that reflect different decades orientations.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_06: And certainly you mentioned the level of energy.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_06: Like most forms of diversifying boards to meet other challenges is the need to have a system for reaching out to people who are not simply a matter of kind of concentric personal circles, because that is always going to be limited.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_06: And I just know fewer younger people who are operating in the world than I do people my own age.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_06: And so that was a challenge for us.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_06: But I don't think that really answers your question, Kurt.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_06: It's just a resonance to what sounds like a very important question.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_07: Just a comment on that.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_07: I actually have a lot of young friends because I have staff who had young friends.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_07: It would be like, I'm not sure I want to invite them to the party called a board, because they would get the wrong idea of what we'd want.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_07: Okay.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_07: To be like showing up for a dance and you discover that it's a sock hop from the 50s.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_07: It's not an interesting dance.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_07: So I'm not interested in your organization.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_07: This is what I'm talking about.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_07: I'm okay with sock hops, but they're not the human thing.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_09: Maybe just following on to that question, um, because it's not the question I want to ask, but maybe the answer to Kurt to help is I have been on some boards where we have managed to get younger people on.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_09: And one of the challenges, of course, is you're always looking for experienced people, and young people don't have experience.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_09: So, how do you get them on boards?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_09: But I think one of the answers is that you make board meetings attractive.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_09: The view is amongst younger people that board meetings are really boring and full of signing off accounts and so on and so forth.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_09: So it's in point of fact, they don't have to be like that, and you can make them very interesting and compelling, and you need the young voices in there.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_09: So that's one of the things that I've done that have worked.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_09: My question, though, it's really to Dan about in the transition space, and you talk about the board and how the board was changing and so on, how it became more mature.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_09: I find all that fascinating.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_09: But there's a key role is the knot in the chair.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_09: How do you identify that person in a lead position as chair?
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_09: Because I think it's critical.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_09: Just interested in your view, how you worked with that chair, how that person was identified and was obviously different from the founder, different from the CEO.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_06: Such a good, deep question.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_06: And honestly, my answer is like it's a combination of aspiration and practical practicality.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_06: We never brought in a chair from outside the organization to simply be chair.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_06: We tried to have a bit of a kind of an internal process by which we were like bringing in people and giving them a chance to learn about the organization and engage the culture and then potentially be available to be in leadership roles.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_06: For me, the key wasn't as much in the identification of the person, because I think probably anybody on the board could have been the chair.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_06: It was the willingness of that person to understand her role and in my previous board members' roles as well.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_06: And here I'll reflect back on the for-profit side of things.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_06: My initial board chair and then the current one come from a for-profit world where the board organization company relationship is a really ongoing one.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_06: And one is characterized by very regular check-ins and deep involvement.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_06: And I think I benefited, and the organization benefits, from the fact that that became part of the assumption of how the chair would relate to the CEO, me and how Sean.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_06: And so I don't have a lot of other experience to reflect on, except that it requires the person not only to be a good person who understands the working of the board and the culture, but then really willing to spend the time.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_06: And that's again an obvious thing to say, but on a small board or a board where not everybody's going to step up and spend the additional many hours a week, you'll have a much more reduced set of options.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_06: We now, I think, have a much more explicit trajectory or set of steps, officer steps that will hopefully identify who's the person who can be the chair next, which we didn't have initially.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_06: There's a combination of who was around, who seemed willing.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_06: And then, as it turned out, that person really embraced the role.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_09: What you're suggesting then is a type of succession plan for the chair as well as succession plans of CEO.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_09: Have an early succession plan for the chair at a board level.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_06: I think that's important.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_06: I think it's hard to do because I think people are busy and don't necessarily want to identify three years ahead of time that they're going to be that next person.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_06: I think there is culturally a need to understand what that chair role actually is.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_06: But that chair role also gets much easier to the extent that the rest of the board is very engaged.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_06: So it's not as much 80-20 and it's more 60-40.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_06: It's not the board chair doing everything.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_06: But the organization as a whole, now that we're a more mature organization, a more diverse set of intersections.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_06: It's not so much a bunspoke, but rather a more web-like set of interactions between the board and the organization.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_06: And those are more institutionalized.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_06: I'm sorry I don't have a more systemic answer to it.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_06: I know there are good systems in place.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_06: We didn't necessarily experience in them.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_06: I think it's more about understanding and defining what the role is, and then making sure that you fill it on both sides and that there's that sense of mutual obligation rather than reserving at my behest.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Dan.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_03: I know that Chris would like to put forward comment.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_03: One of the things I'd quickly like to say before that is that I know that my experience of boards and seeing other people's boards is that so many of them are men on the boards rather than, and very few women are invited even to be on board.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_03: So I just think that's something we all need to think about.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_03: I'll just hand over now to Chris.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks very much, Andrea.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to comment briefly on the question of young people joining the board as part of the overall context of either diversity on the one hand or experience in the other.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I work as a mentor for my SINS.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: And one of my mentees is the chief executive of an organization that coaches young people in prison.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so they were very keen to have on their board several young people who had been in the prison experience, who'd come out, served their time, and had also been customers of the coaching that the organization had.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: It was logical in a way.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: And the young people were very interested to be part of it, but they didn't want the responsibility.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: They felt that the responsibility was quite onerous.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so they formed an interesting idea.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: They basically had an apprentice board member.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: So they created two apprenticeships.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: They put little money behind it so that it would mean that the young person could come.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Generally, they were from a poor background, so that the young person could get to where the board was being held and be able to contribute properly.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: So they weren't in any way handicapped by the fact that they were broke.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it actually works extremely well.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: What now happens is that the youngsters who are often under 18, when they start the apprenticeship, they go through, they become 18, maybe 19, and then at that point they're asked if they'd like to make way for another person and if they'd like to join the board properly at that point and sign up.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it works.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: It works pretty well.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: Not everyone wants to do it, of course, but it seems to be an interesting way of working and actually involving folks.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Chris.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_03: Another question, of course, is that I have encountered not on my own board but elsewhere that someone who has found that they've got the wrong board chair, and how do you deal with that?
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_03: So there are a lot of issues around board membership and the sort of people who should be on boards.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the things that all of us have been thinking about is how you think about the diversity, as it were.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_03: Is eldership an issue of diversity?
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_03: And if so, why do we have the sort of preserve of being on boards or many older men being invited to be on boards?
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_03: So I think that's another thing that we need to be exploring.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_06: I will have one other, maybe just one comment.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_06: First of all, that our board has always been at least equal men and women.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_06: I think at this point it's majority women, Andrea.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_06: So it's been great.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_06: Interesting, Chris, reflecting on something you said.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_06: Clearly, one obstacle both to be a board member and going on a board is maybe an expectation that you contribute money or that you're a big donor.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_06: And it's clearly an irritant on some of the boards that I'm on.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_06: And you're obviously right to point that out as a clear expectation.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_06: And also, I guess another potential flash point when someone comes in and maybe realizes my board was never really a fundraising board.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_06: We didn't expect that of them.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_06: Would have been great.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_06: It was always a hope, but they were generous, but not necessarily with massive amounts of money.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_06: And that has to be part of the expectation, the communication between the person who's coming in and the board that's managing that transition.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, one of the things you said right at the beginning, Dan, was that you were talking about for-profit boards.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_03: People have a sort of stake in terms of money and profit and so on.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I just think that creates a kind of equilibrium, whereas so many people join a board because they love the passion and the sort of vision of the founder.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's why they're so fearful often of the founder leaving, because that's the sort of lifeblood of the organization.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_03: And that that was quite an insight for me to think about that, the board of a for-profit and the board of a not-for-profit, and what it is that actually drives people to want to be on a board of a social enterprise, to know that they're doing good, but actually led by the founder.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's an important issue.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_03: Do you have any comments to make about the issue?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_03: And obviously, I'm conscious that you have to be sensitive about your boards and so on, that you're part of.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_03: But if there's an issue of ego that is troublesome in when it comes to the all the time.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_06: Absolutely.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_06: Good for you for naming it.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_06: Of course.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_06: And I speak from my own personal experience.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_06: I was ready to leave.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_06: I'm not particularly micromanagey.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_06: If I'd wanted to stay in that role, I could have stayed in that role.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_06: But also there was an element of still wanting the glory from the association of whatever it was that it succeeded in.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_06: So sure, there's a sort of a, there's an ego piece.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_06: There's a, there's certainly, again, I don't feel that this exists between me and my successor in that organization.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_06: But in in any efforts to manage people within organizations, particularly at times of stress, like a transition or a succession, egos and unspoken needs are there.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_06: And that again, structurally, what needs to happen is boards need to know that and make allowance for it and staff it.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_06: So that's an explicit part of the board's role for that period of time.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_06: Not just, hey, we got a new person and this person's gone, but like, how are we as a board spending time to make sure that works?
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_06: And what do we expect of those two people, or maybe just the remaining person if that first person has left, such that it can be successful and ego, it's present in everything we do all the time.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much, Dan.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_03: This is fascinating.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_03: Mel, I know that this is the moment where we have to close the session, but I know that you'd like to sum up where we are at the end here.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_09: Thank you very much, Andrea.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_09: And always with our webinars, I never know where an hour goes.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_09: It just disappears.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_09: It seems like it was five minutes ago since we started.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_09: There's so much information.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_09: So huge thanks to you, Dan, for sharing your experience and your insights.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_09: As you said, you talked about these three different phases, which I thought was fascinating.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_09: Phase one, getting the organization up and to a point of maturity.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_09: And then that critical second phase where you're actually handing over and getting that right, and then staying on the board and sharing that insight, because that seemed in a number of people in the questions, we're talking about that stage being absolutely vital for the organization as it moved forward and the maturity, as you said, of the organization, how the board took much more control, if you like, or took much more responsibility for its own actions, that insight you gave there, I think is very important for us to recognize and share.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_09: I love the idea, by the way, of this kind of downing payment that you said, this kind of transition payment or transfer fee as a kind of part of a fundraising.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_09: I thought I'm gonna I'm gonna remember that one.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_09: That's quite but then onto your third phase, moving on to the for-profit board and understanding the culture there, where you mentioned you know, much more mutual obligations for people because they'd actually invested cash into it, so therefore there was a different kind of dynamic and your learnings from that and your experience for that.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_09: I thought was really interesting.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_09: And of course, we're all learning all the time.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_09: So sharing experience from the profit sector, which many of us I suspect have not been in, actually was a real insight as well.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_09: Adding these two together was just a great contribution, done.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_09: Really thanks again.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_09: And then I think you said some really interesting questions from Alex about the the well-being of the organization during this period, not just about the founder and the board, the actual organization itself.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_09: As I mentioned, then Bradley and David were asking questions about that apart, that connection about the CEO and the board moving on and how much the board were holding that responsibility.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_09: Again, your insights there, I wrote down a bit how boards have seasons of maturity and have different growth paths and patterns, which at the end of the day always comes down to the individuals.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_09: I think you mentioned a number of times how much it's about the people at the end of the day.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_09: It's the people, it's the people, it's the people.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_09: And I think later on, Claire was asking about the culture.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_09: You mentioned around the culture, and she was asking the question about how do we deal with problems, he was thinking about it's about the culture that's been created in the board and in the organization.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_09: And that's it, if you've got the culture right, you shouldn't have so many problems.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_09: And that's absolutely correct as well.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_09: Cecilia was talking about the two-table transition and how that's managed the board.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_09: And then, of course, Kurt, with his intervention then about younger people on boards, and another whole hour we could spend on how you get younger people involved in boards at board levels, and how we get them engaged and take responsibilities, etc.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_09: It's another whole fascinating subject.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_09: So I'm sure we'll come up with that at some point.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_09: And then the question I was talking about around chairs and the critical role the founder and CEO plays, but also the critical role the chair plays.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_09: And I'm often saying some of the work I'm doing in any organization, a central tense peg if anything will be the relationship between the CEO and the chair.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_09: It's an absolutely fundamental.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_09: If you've got that strong, the organization will be strong.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_09: If it's a problem, you have a problem.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_09: So getting that, I think, is so important.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_09: And again, your insight there about any board member could be a chair, but it's a question of who's going to step up rather than necessarily picking somebody two or three years out.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_09: So, all in all, hopefully that captures what we were talking about.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_09: But it's a really pertinent issue.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_09: That's why we've got so many people engaged listening here, why we've got the questions.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_09: It's where we're all at in the development of this sector as the sector grows and matures and learns.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_09: These are the questions we need to ask and answer.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_09: And I think, you know, you can see from engagement today how relevant that all is.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_09: But just to say to everybody for joining and listening and contributing, thank you.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_09: And in particular to Dan to you for your insights, because they've just been excellent and very relevant.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_09: Thank you very much indeed.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you, everybody.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_06: What a pleasure.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_06: Um, let's go, Matt.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_06: That was a really great session.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_06: Thanks, everybody.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_11: Thank you, Dan.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_06: Thanks, thank you, Dan.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_02: Really grateful to you all.