CEOs were unanimous in pointing to the board as a key leverage point. There was a sense among many of the CEOs that even one board member that is willing to ask the right questions can be quite influential.
"I really think a single director can change the way [sustainability] is managed in the board. Obviously it helps to have one or two other people who are supportive." (CEO)
We were surprised to learn how much effort some sustainability change agents put into getting to know the strengths and weaknesses of their board members and trying to use what little face time they might have with board members to plant the seeds for future conversations and priming them to ask the right kind of questions.
We found that change agents can help leverage the power of the board in these ways:
"I suppose it's seeing the board as another tool. We're very lucky. Our chairman has been very engaged on this, but we also know that amongst the other board members there are those that are friendly to our cause and there are those that are not so. We've ranked our board on how engaged they are and how supportive they are of our agenda. That really helps because you then know who to contact on what issues. Whether you're taking something to the board or to the executive team, you know that you can run it past some friendly faces at the board level first. I think the main advice around the board is they will have experience from being board members at other organizations, so check out where else they sit and what they will be aware of. What is their background, what questions are they likely to have been asked in their other boards that they sit on?
We have guys who've come from the mining sector and so we think 'great on a social agenda how can they be useful to us?' It's also - where have they been based? One of our board members has been based in Germany. Well, they're quite developed in extended producer responsibility conversations. Brilliant, we find a way for her to share what she's learned and what she's experienced. I think it's really looking at them as individuals that have strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, if you have a session with the board what do you need to focus it on, who is going to be a supporter in that room? You can also call individual board members into the conversation and say, 'you've obviously come across this. You've operated in Brazil for a number of years and you've worked in this other sector where these issues are more front and centre, can you give us an example of how they dealt with an issue like this?'
That then starts to really bring them into it because they can bring in their experience. With the boards, you have to use them as experts and you have to help them present themselves like that. If you go and try and teach them, have a teaching session, that doesn't always go well because they sit there going 'seriously we're board members here, we've got a certain level of intelligence,' so it's very much going in and leveraging their current knowledge and focusing on specific things you want to be developing with them or conversations you want to have. And then while you may have done all the homework to check out which case studies you want to be putting forward or who you're going to ask what, they need to own it and you need to let them have the conversation.
Our CEO and our Finance Director and our Chief Operating Officer all sit on the board as well, so having that conversation and knowing who you want to leverage and what you want them to be saying means that your execs will hear that from the board perspective and in that board discussion. Then when you present it again to the executive team they've got other examples, so they can then take the examples that were discussed at board and share them with the rest of the executive team to make them feel that they've got a handle on it and that they understand it. It's really key." (Head of Sustainability)