Board Bravery/Risk Appetite/ Intrapreneurship/Entrepreneurship is largely determined by the nature and composition of the Board and the ownership of the business.
Business leaders answer a hierarchy of questions:
How brave do we want to be?
How much are we willing to invest in the new?
How long before we need to show a return on that investment?
and
Who decides how long we have got before we show that return?
Instant, global connectivity and viral messaging have raised the stakes for setting appropriate Risk Appetite levels and taking the right strategic decisions.
Sitting around the Board table, long serving Board members may share sage stories of what happened when brave decisions were taken and things went wrong. A quick review of organizational history may provide a lesson in sacrifice or who fell on their sword and why.
Refreshing the Board may promote or inhibit bravery. The lack of legacy baggage carried by new Board members has the potential to increase risk appetite. Alternatively, new entrants may have been recruited to help steady a ship, out of control.
Each individual director will have a level of natural bravery, determined by the sum of their experiences. Around every Board table, perceptions differ and the richness of debate is essential. Members of a high performance Board will openly share their individual perspectives in order to arrive at a collaborative response to the question of Board bravery.
To quote one experienced headhunter “What some directors regard as breakthrough technology can be described by their colleagues as disruptive technology.”