What is the Virtual Chairman?
I provide the services of a Chairman and a great deal more. Part mentor, part coach, part troubleshooter, part interim, I can of course chair when or if required but my primary role is to broadly reinforce your Board with know-how and inspiration gathered from decades of operating in Boardrooms of all sizes in a wide range of industries.
The stories pages recount some of my adventures in business, and I hope they provide a useful insight. You are more than welcome to put me to the test, at no cost, by both of us speculating an hour of our time to talk about your business. Please drop me a line to schedule a call. Simple as that.
I use the Institute of Directors summary of a Chairman as the basis for the following paragraphs:
- supporting the chief executive/MD
This was at the bottom of the IoD list but I put it first. CEO/MD can be a lonely place and paradoxically the more people one employs, the lonelier it can be. I have been there. All bucks stop with you and you will therefore need to have answers for anything and everything. When everyone else has scratched their heads bare trying to solve their problem, they come to you. But you are human too – so who can you go to? You may feel that being seen to ‘not know’ could be perceived as weakness, which compounds the loneliness and consequent stress. I can assure you that with the sum of what you know and what I know, we will always find the answer. As a Virtual Chairman, I can be as visible or as invisible in your organisation as you wish.
- providing leadership to the Board
Leadership – vision and values for people to align with – comes from seeing, comprehending and presenting the bigger picture: the whole business, and the whole scenario in which it operates. It is a clearer, more expansive view than those mired in the business may have and a perfect vantage point from which to identify opportunities – and how to exploit them. I can inspire and drive the preparation and execution of a Business Plan. Many people blanche at the thought of business planning, largely because there is a tacit expectation that the plan is supposed to be a weighty tome. It isn’t: it is a quantified and qualified assessment of the current and future positions, with a map and narrative of how you will get from one to the other. It might only be one page – but it would be a powerful page. Whatever, it will only have as many pages as it needs to set out where we are, where we want to be and how we will get there.
- taking responsibility for the board’s composition and development
This may or may not be about adding people to the Board but what it is absolutely about is making sure that all pillars of the enterprise are effectively represented in the Boardroom. A Board that comprises all the founders, because they were the founders, does not necessarily mean the pillars of enterprise are effectively represented.
- ensuring proper information for the board
There should be monthly financial reports at minimum but optimum proper information is a continuous real-time view of the enterprise’s activities. What constitutes ‘proper information’ is mostly common to all businesses but every business has certain parameters that are especially significant and usually non-financial.
- planning and conducting board meetings effectively
Board meetings are very important but many are wastes of time because they lack structure and focus. An evolved version, based on experience of wasting time, is to not bother other than in times of crisis. You probably know this is less than ideal. Board meetings have real purpose when there is a Business Plan. They do not need to be at fixed intervals if real-time information is continuously available – they can be called only when a meeting would be useful. On these terms, you might even look forward to them.
- getting all directors involved in the Board’s work
The role of directors is to direct. Obvious? Many business owners become directors by default: Companies House requires that a company have director(s) and so entrepreneurs self-appoint. Awarding oneself ‘the top job’ has appeal but directing is a specific skill. Filling in a form IN01 or AP01 merely bestows responsibilities on an individual …but not the skills. Where did you learn to direct?
- ensuring the Board focuses on its key tasks
Directors are where bucks stop which can all too easily result in a daily routine that is determined by the sporadic arrival of bucks. This reactive position interferes with directing, sometimes to the exclusion of any directing at all. It is all too easy to lose sight of wood amongst trees or proceed like beheaded fowl under these conditions. Let’s put a stop to it.
- engaging the Board in assessing and improving its performance
Working with monthly (or less frequent) accounts reports as your only tool is a bit like heading north from London to Scotland and realising some time afterwards that the A1 would have been a better choice – useless. Striving for a plan and a well-equipped business dashboard is fundamentally the Board’s role. If you have a clear business plan and real-time reporting directing the business is as straightforward as driving a car with satnav: you know where you are going and your rate of progress at all times.
- overseeing the induction and development of directors
If more directors are needed it will be self-evident from the business plan. Recruiting, or promoting, new Board members will rank highly in the list of ‘most important buying decisions’ in anyone’s life, right up there with home purchases. Yet, all too often, entrepreneurs decide one day they need, say, more business and hire a Sales & Marketing Director. Bad appointments can be catastrophic for a business because the newcomer will be costly and powerful in the enterprise – a recipe for financial and operational havoc if they do not or cannot perform. There is another side to this coin: the enterprise itself must be prepared for the newcomer – and many are not.