What inspired you to become a member of the Virtual Advisory Board community?
I'd say there are 3 key factors: 1) the vision and enthusiasm of the co-founders Mark & David in building an intimate focused community that integrates members across YPO, EO & CEO organisations. This helps bring an incredible amount of collective intelligence in one 'room'; 2) the breadth, flexibility and diversity of the learning and networking experiences offered by VAB, along with its ambition to add a hybrid layer to the overall journey of becoming a board advisor or NED; and 3) for my own self-realisation so that I function better as a provocateur and catalyst at the C-level instead of being just an operator-manager. I appreciate how VAB connects me with a tribe of global leaders who share a similar ambition for building their board careers.
In what area do you feel board advisors can add the most value for Boards of Directors (BoDs) and executive teams?
Building on what I said above, I believe the next generation of sought-after, trusted board advisors will be ones who can bring in not just the 'usual' benefits. This means moving beyond just delivering independent as well as expert thinking from past experiences; rather these are people who can truly provoke a new type of thinking in the board and executive teams. This is thinking that initially helps drive self-awareness of potential biases in incumbent mindsets and then sparks a new type of assessment that has come to be known as systems thinking - one that helps overcome barriers and assumptions about what is possible in a given sector. It helps intersect and potentially integrate ideas and insights from other sectors that are likely to disrupt how organisations operate in the said field. With the complexities faced in our current world, often referred to as 'wicked problems', this type of thinking requires one to explore what's happening at the 'edges' of these intersections. Based on my 25+ years of professional experience, I've seen that organisations driven by bold leaders increasingly want to explore these new frontiers through advisors.
What would be your dream company/organization to work with as a board advisor/NED?
Keeping in mind my experience around education, innovation and impact (and built on a foundation of lifelong service to entrepreneurship), I would love to collaborate with bold leaders and organisations in education, climate & food systems. Here, I mean not just at the academic stakeholders level, but also those engaging at the country or multi-lateral levels who look to drive transformation in line with global goals (such as SDGs - sustainable development goals) as well as sector specific challenges around financing, data, effectiveness & policy. With my entrepreneurial background, working with start-ups focused on impact, as well as future-focused government and innovation agencies looking to build new types of entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems in their domains, would be amazing as well.
What book would you recommend to VAB members that might improve their skills in corporate governance, board advisory or boosting board-to-executive team communications?
One of my favourites is Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Building strong team dynamics with True North alignment is critical in any organisational unit, let alone the board, and this book is a wonderful read explaining that process. Being a bit provocative, I would also recommend reading The Art of Impossible by Steven Kotler. His book focuses on how humans can access high performance on demand in the same ways that captivate us when we watch elite athletes, musicians and other performers. While not a book on communication per se, it can help executive teams and boards decode what high performance is all about. It can also enable them to build new mindsets and habits to drive their organisations to the next level. Teaching a course around this in my adjunct faculty role at New York University, I can fully vouch for the results that follow.
Follow Aman Merchant on LinkedIn.
Comments