At Governance Evaluator, we have been talking a lot about Resilient Governance over the last few blog posts and webinars, in particular as a skill required for leading through these unprecedented COVID-19 times. Overall, we have learnt that resilience isn’t built in a day, it takes time and commitment, it’s about fostering skills so that you have the capacity to continually learn, cope, adapt, and transform in the face of everyday events, as well as shocks and stressors.
Firstly, we discovered through our blog Data Driven Governance Insights (Why 3 is the magic number) that year three is a magic number in Board’s and Director’s evaluation journey, because this is when they described themselves as being more resilient.
In our webinar The Importance of Data Led Governance, our panel of Chairs and CEOs spoke about how over time they had become more discerning in their evaluations and were happier to sit with being amber or red in their answers, and where comfortable, to have the tough conversations required to manage their risk and strategy. They felt by taking this approach, they were building their own resilience.
When speaking with CEO of Royal Freemasons Kerri Rivett in our next webinar, Governing for Resilience, she spoke about the need for Directors and Boards to have the ability to have dual skills, monitoring risk on a daily basis whilst ensuring they take time for blue sky thinking and strategic planning. She went on to describe this as the ability to pivot, adapt and thrive, something that she, her executives and Board believe in. In Kerri’s view this is a key element of resilient governance.
In our next webinar Remaining Resilient, Leanne Ryan, Governance Institute, spoke about the incredible journey the Governance Institute of Australia as an organisation has been on for pivoting and adapting to support their staff, continue to be relevant to their membership, their successes and why. The key to their success and resilience through this transformation was focusing, concurrently, on strong business planning for continuity as well as leading a caring culture through transparent communication, flexible working arrangements and empowerment.
In this month’s blog we present a case study to showcase Arpad Aged Care’s amazing work that started at the same time as COVID-19. Rather than putting their governance development needs on hold they continued on and are becoming a stronger professional Board – resiliently leading a successful future. Watch our interview with past Chair and current Director Éva Kövesdy below as she outlines Arpad’s journey and speaks on how Boards can support themselves to become more resilient through investing in themselves, even in these crazy times.
If you are interested in finding out how we can help your Board or Council to become more resilient make a time to speak to our governance expert below.