Rebellious Thoughts #49 - 🤘 Be Uncomfortable

Hey Rebels!

As always, I promise to provoke you in less than 5 min once a week so that you can stay adaptable and on top of your game.

YEW!

Let’s get into today’s:

I may have mentioned to you in a previous newsletter that I was going to do the AICD (Company Directors) course - maybe not?

Either way - Today is day 4 of the 5 face-to-face days the course includes.

Basically about 6 weeks of pre-reading, 5 days face-to-face and 3 months after to complete your exam and essay.

Why am I doing this I hear you say? Gus and Governance don’t seem to go together - they start with the same letter and that’s about it! Haha

You know I bang on about novelty a lot, about being uncomfortable to learn. Well this is me eating my own dog food!

I sell solutions to boards, I mentor board members, I facilitate workshops with them, I participate in boards.

Back in the day I had a crash course and have been on a few boards but felt it was time to be more formal and throw myself into the deep end of discomfort…

I know some of you have probably done this course already and many of you are considering it, but even if you are not even interested, let me share some insights and provocative thoughts to help you realise how much the way we train directors in Australia, the corporation act and regulators actually impact your life!!

Have a look at this table…wow!!!

Sure you can argue culture and many other factors contribute to this insane difference… but let me tell you something you perhaps didn’t consider: Australian Corporation Law and the way Directors behave.

CSL is the only special mention in the Australian column, the others…. conservative corporations that follow Australian’s conservative law and mindset.

I am being provocative so don’t jump at me yet! ;-)

So whether you are a Director in your own business or you work for a company, I can guarantee a lot of frustration is born with the Corporations Act, which pushes the regulator, which pushes the board, which pushes the execs, which pushes senior management and so on and so forth all the policies and KPIs and risk registers and return on capital expectations and reports and and and…..

Interestingly… you don’t need any formal qualifications to be a Director, so despite the fact that most ASX listed companies would want you to have the AICD course or equivalent you actually don’t have to have it.

Luna does a course that is more aligned with startups and Future Directors also does one.

My first impressions were as expected… booking the course was a little “stiff”, a bit inflexible let’s say… but we got there in the end.

The next interaction was simply receiving a HUGE box with not one, but two folders that had to be purchased at a garage sale or a vinnies (cos I don’t think anyone makes them anymore) with a huge amount of reading including fun topics like “risk” “governance” “finance” and more!

They never asked me if I wanted the folders, they just sent them…you can also download the material on their website and also use an app… both ok, not the best UX but it passes (there is a huge opportunity for the AICD to completely transform that experience!).

You are meant to read everything.

I was a little disappointed that a lot of the content is dated and super basic.
Eg: instead of making me read a bunch of chapters of BEHAVE by Sapolsky or Brent Brown they make me read sterile content like “Emotional intelligence is important as a director, here are 5 critical elements to consider”

There’s a bunch of case studies that are fun, and the financial section is good…. but, I went into it thinking “shit this is going to not only be boring but unsophisticated...intellectually unrigorous”….

And……!

To my surprise the 20 or so people doing it with me are a bunch of legends with super diverse experiences and incredible knowledge…

The teachers, minus one so far, have been sensational… interactive and clever enough to realise the actual power is in the room not in what they themselves know… so with a little steer, we the students, sort through most of the learning.

Some good insights and I’ll leave some stuff for another newsletter:

* The board is incentivised by law and regulators to be incredibly conservative and naturally risk adverse so,

* The boards require measures of certainty and outsource or leave outside of the board conversation uncertainty like: innovation, technology, geopolitical challenges, climate challenges, customer centricity, etc so,

* The board focuses mostly on short-term results and financial solvency and less on long-term relevance.

I know, if you build the right balance on the board and do a skills matrix and blah blah it shouldn’t happen but… when you receive two huge 1920s folders and the first words spoken at the course most Australian Directors do is Risk and Jail and Law and Governance… you know what the result will be.

* Your job is to be sceptical, to mistrust, to hold the execs accountable, to find the potential gap, error, misconsidered risk, misspelling, mis-potential-fortune, mishandling… and of course covering your ass while you are doing this.

* This is not my natural frame of mind, I like to build trust, to collaborate, to think always the best of everyone, to imagine amazing futures…

* I do think we need fresh blood in our boards and more WOMEN! (Only 5 in our cohort) and a new attitude and mix of skills…

Of course, it’s understandable why Directors have to behave this way and it is also understandable why the regulators push it this way, but it seems that law is trying to persuade or catch the few that fuck up and the rest of us pay the tax of paperwork and reports and policies and KPIs that comes with it.

Almost 3 million Directors in Australia… huge % of the population and therefore huge collective impact on decision-making!

Anyway enough.

More next time!

Love

Gus

P.S. The first Rebellious Thought Session is taking place NEXT TUESDAY!
If you were one of the 111 people who already signed up, you should have already received the calendar invite with the link in your email.

If you haven’t signed up yet and want to be part of it SIGN UP HERE! 

Need more info?

The Rebellious Thought Sessions is a series of FREE monthly talks by Gus Balbontin.                 

Free flow.
Provocation.
Radical ideas.
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YEW !!!

WHEN: September 3rd 2024 at 12PM AEST *
WHERE: Zoom (link below and in calendar invite)
WHAT:  \RebelliousThoughtSessions > start announce-properly.exe_

P.S.S. Wonder what I even do in “real life”?

1/ Co-founder and Director at Neu21.
We combine creativity, innovation and insight to create unstoppable organisations and products customers love. Book a Discovery call to learn how we can help your organisation

2/ I coach high-performing professionals and execs and help them take it to the next level. Book a 1-1 Coaching session with Gus

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