“Can I ask you a question before we begin? If someone removed the board pack from your next meeting and left you with only the organisation’s purpose, strategy, risks and customers, would the quality of your decisions improve or deteriorate?”
If you are not yet a member of the Institute of Corporate Governance of Uganda, I recommend you apply and become one. You get the opportunity to interact with many accomplished professionals. Five years ago, I walked confidently into a board retreat convinced that I had already diagnosed the organisation’s governance problem before anyone had spoken. After nearly two hours of listening, taking notes and admiring what looked like a very disciplined board discussion, I quietly realised something embarrassing. The directors were exceptionally intelligent, the discussions were energetic, the presentations were polished, yet everyone had spent two hours debating symptoms instead of the disease. The meeting was efficient, but governance was absent. I still smile whenever I remember that day because it reminded me that even Mr Strategy can mistake movement for progress. Since then, every boardroom has become a fresh lesson in humility.
That experience changed how I facilitate boards today. Whether I am leading a board retreat, conducting a board evaluation, mentoring newly appointed directors, reviewing governance during corporate governance awards, or reflecting on lessons from serving as Secretary to Council at the Institute of Corporate Governance, one pattern keeps appearing. Most boards fail because intelligence without strategic discipline becomes sophisticated distraction. Yes, many boards have highly qualified leaders. However, they lack systems to deliver value.
My wife comes from Bushenyi, and I love the way my inlaws cherish their cows. The cattle kraal teaches the board’s real job. My wife once told me that a good kraal does not merely keep cattle inside, but protects them from danger while ensuring they can leave every morning to find better pasture. If the kraal becomes too restrictive, the herd weakens. If it becomes too open, predators enter. That is exactly what an effective board does.
Too many directors believe governance means protecting the organisation by controlling everything management does. Others believe governance means approving papers and staying safely above operations. Both extremes damage the organisation. The future belongs to boards that know precisely where to intervene and where to deliberately step back.
The board is not there to become another management committee. Neither is it a ceremonial audience applauding management presentations. Its real responsibility is disciplined strategic stewardship. The board that discovered it had become yesterday’s expert
Not long ago, I facilitated a board strategy retreat for a large regional manufacturing company that had dominated its market for decades. Revenue was still growing, although much more slowly than before. Competitors were entering with digital distribution models, customers were changing buying habits, and supply chain costs had become unpredictable. Management requested approval for another investment in production capacity.
The discussion immediately focused on machinery specifications, factory expansion and procurement timelines. Directors debated equipment brands with remarkable confidence. One could easily forget that everyone in the room had been appointed to govern strategy rather than supervise engineers.
I stopped the discussion and drew a simple cattle kraal on the flip chart. Then I asked one question. “If your customers disappeared tomorrow, would this investment still make strategic sense?” No one spoke. Nobody had asked what customers would need five years from now, discussed whether the business model itself remained competitive, or explored whether capital should instead strengthen digital channels, new product development or regional partnerships. The investment itself was not wrong but the sequence of thinking was.
That afternoon the board shifted from discussing assets to discussing competitive advantage. Operations followed strategy instead of replacing it. That single conversation probably saved several billion shillings from being allocated to yesterday’s opportunities instead of tomorrow’s growth. The same lesson appears across the world.
Years later, while studying how successful global companies transformed themselves, I found the same pattern repeated. Microsoft did not become more competitive simply because it hired smarter executives. Its board supported difficult strategic renewal instead of protecting historical success. Meanwhile, many once-dominant companies struggled because boards continued measuring yesterday’s performance while the market quietly rewrote tomorrow’s rules, different countries, different industries, the same governance challenge.
Boards fail because they keep asking yesterday’s questions. The future director needs different muscles. When I assess boards today, technical expertise still matters, but it no longer predicts board effectiveness.
The directors creating competitive advantage consistently demonstrate a different set of capabilities.
- They are strategically curious before they become operationally confident.
- They understand technology sufficiently to ask intelligent questions without pretending to be software engineers.
- They recognise emerging risks before those risks become audit findings.
- They comfortably challenge assumptions while remaining respectful of management.
Most importantly, they continually learn. The moment a director believes experience has replaced curiosity, governance starts aging.
The Boardroom Reality Check
During board evaluations, I often use a simple exercise that changes conversations almost immediately. I call it the Boardroom Reality Check. Before discussing any agenda paper, I ask directors to answer five questions individually.
- What decision are we actually being asked to make?
- Which strategic objective does this decision strengthen?
- What assumption could prove false?
- What customer or stakeholder behaviour are we ignoring?
If this decision appeared on tomorrow’s newspaper front page, would we defend it with confidence? The first time I introduced this exercise, several directors smiled politely, perhaps wondering whether the consultant had become overly philosophical.
Fifteen minutes later, those smiles disappeared. Directors realised they had been discussing financial projections without questioning market assumptions, they had approved risk reports without discussing emerging risks, and they had reviewed performance without asking whether success still matched the strategy.
That simple exercise continues changing board conversations because it forces directors to think before they react. Remember the cattle kraal. Its value is never measured by how impressive the fence looks but by whether the herd becomes stronger, healthier and better prepared for tomorrow’s journey. Exactly the same applies to governance. A board should never be judged by the thickness of its board packs, the length of its meetings or the elegance of its minutes. It should be judged by whether the organisation becomes more resilient, more competitive and more valuable because of its stewardship.
Before your next board meeting, ask yourselves these questions. Are we governing tomorrow, or are we supervising yesterday? Have we challenged management’s assumptions, or merely admired their presentations? If every operational detail disappeared from our agenda, would our strategic contribution become stronger or weaker?
The future will not reward boards that simply attend meetings, but directors who help organisations see around corners before competitors do. That, more than any governance manual or compliance checklist, is the defining skill every future-ready director must master.
I remain, Mr Strategy.
