What do I need to know to get board roles and add value in post?

Guests refer to two categories of knowledge: first, board-specific knowledge like governance; second knowledge of different functions (like finance) and macro-trends (like AI). The latter can be particularly challenging for people who have retired as execs.

Below, we include some of the core areas of knowledge you need to have as a board member, along with insights into each of those areas.

We have framed each of these areas as questions that a chair might ask you in an interview.

AI: What are the challenges and opportunities for this organisation?

Frame AI as a competitive threat, not just as an opportunity 

"We attract audiences, and then we're really good at monetising them. But how do they find us? Google. But now you have Google Discover, which gives you the top three places to buy something. But where's Google going to go with that? They're going to try to own those people and stop them from needing to go elsewhere. That's a huge threat to our business model." Angela Seymour-Jackson, Chair of Page Group, Deputy Chair of Pikl, SID at TrustPilot Group, and NED at Future and Janus Henderson Group

Focus on the way in which AI will change your customers' behaviour 

"We start with the way AI is likely to impact consumer behaviour. I've got a grandson who asks Alexa whether it will rain today before he decides whether to play football. Think of him as a generation of consumers. Their behaviour will be completely different from even Gen Z consumers." Gerry Murphy, Chair of Tesco and Burberry, Trustee at Burberry Foundation, Senior Advisor at Perella Weinberg and Mentor at J&A Mentoring

Tension between suits and technologists can be constructive on boards 

"There is a big misunderstanding between how much we need to invest in technology and how much risk is involved. As a business owner, I need the board to challenge me because when we are building things, we can go down rabbit holes. Suits need money to sell products; technologists need money to develop them. We need that conflict." Jurga Žilinskienė MBE is founder of Guildhawk, Evernoon, Today Translations and Today Academy

Commercial acumen: Tell me about a business challenge you've solved, beyond your core expertise

"The spikes are good for doing tasks, but more important than that - can you convince a chair that you're a highly commercial, broad-based business person who can turn their hand across the full spectrum of business? Most of the time, unless you're in your subcommittees, you're not deep in audit or remuneration. You're across the broad spread of issues facing the business. Having that conversation with the chair that convinces him or her of your broad base is critical." Cathy Turner, NED at Lloyds Banking Group PLC, Rentokil PLC and Spectris PLC, Partner at Manchester Square Partners

Company history: What are the key issues the board has grappled with in the last year?

"There's nothing worse than somebody coming into a boardroom and telling you how to run that board better than the CEO. They didn't read through the past board papers and see that particular issue had been raised three meetings ago. It's not just about the now, it's also about the past... It's that historic context, which gives you credibility." Jenny Knott, Non-Executive Director at British Business Bank and Simply Health, founder of Fintech Strategic Advisors, former CEO of Standard Bank International and Nex Optimization

Decision-making: What factors do you consider when making collective decisions?

Uncertainty will rush you into bad decisions 

"Most people regard uncertainty as evil - something to be eliminated … So they rush to some form of certainty, something that makes them feel comfortable, instead of taking time and tolerating the ambiguity of the situation to deeply understand what is really happening right now." Dr. Margaret Heffernan, author of seven books, including Wilful Blindness, ormer CEO of InfoMation Corp, ZineZone Corp, and iCast Corp, member of Thinkers50 Hall of Fame

Don't judge the quality of your decision by its outcome 

"Defeat is an orphan; success has a thousand fathers. At any one time, there are millions of people making every possible call for stock markets, which means that somebody is going to be right. Because if you throw a million darts, some of them are going to hit the bullseye. That is simply not a good way of judging the quality of their judgement." Dan Gardner, international best-selling author of Superforecasting, How Big Things Get Done, Risk and Future Babble

Do pre-mortems on your decisions 

"Boards need to ask more and better questions … The pre-mortem: 'OK, everybody seems to be on board. Now let's just say, in X month's time, we find out we got this wrong … What did we miss?' … Now people are thinking, 'OK, how do I show how clever I am?' What are the doubts I have in the back of my mind?" Professor Amy Edmondson, Professor of Leadership & Management at Harvard Business School

ESG: What does an effective strategy look like?

"What does a good sustainability strategy look like? It looks like one that's embedded in the business, that's intrinsic to the business model, where everyone wants to get behind it." Amanda Mackenzie OBE, NED at British Land and Lloyds Banking Group, former CEO of Business in the Community

Macro-trends: What macro forces are likely to impact our business model in the next five years?

"When the facts change, you change your mind. That understanding of the macro's impact on your business model is absolutely core to what a board should be doing." Sir Ian Cheshire, Chair of Land Securities Group and Aspire Healthcare Group, former Chair of Channel 4 and Barclays Bank UK

Non-exec thinking: What are the differences between exec and non-exec thinking?

"When I started as a board member, I kind of had more of my operational lens on, and now I tend to think much more about governance and asking the what and the why rather than the how. Not getting so much into the weeds and really figuring out how I can support the CEO rather than do the job for them." Maria Molland, NED at Clos du Val Winery and former CEO of Thinx

P&L: What experience do you have?

"I said, look, the one thing I've not done in formal terms is run a P&L yet. So is there a small piece of a P&L somewhere in this great big world that I might be able to have? I'm constantly expanding and growing and learning ... You have to be quite thoughtful around what you need a bit more experience on." Amanda Mackenzie OBE, NED at British Land and Lloyds Banking Group, former CEO of Business in the Community

Risk: How do you think about it?

Availability bias 

"If I try to think of an example of a risk and it leaps to mind - vivid, horrible, makes me feel bad - then intuitively I feel like it must be common and dangerous. But often that's not true. After 9/11, people shifted from air to car travel because they feared flying. But car travel is less safe. Some estimates suggest the deaths from that shift equaled or exceeded the number of people who died on 9/11 itself. Our ancient intuitive systems aren't adapted to today's complex risks." Dan Gardner, author of Superforecasting, How Big Things Get Done, Risk and Future Babble

Use pre-mortems to broaden risk analysis 

"You want to increase the quality of conversation. Ask more and better questions. Institute formal moments of reflection or pause: what are we missing? What could go wrong? Use a pre-mortem: it's three months from now, it was a fiasco, what did we miss? That generates a different kind of thinking. Instead of people simply feeling this sounds good, you get the things that were in the back of their minds but unsaid." Amy Edmondson, Professor of Leadership & Management at Harvard Business School

Stakeholder management: What are your key principles?

"I spend time trying to understand everyone's positions and what matters to them. Do that long before it becomes a rarefied issue. Don't wait until you're in the planning stages of an exit process. Do that at the beginning when you're first involved. Your best time to do it is when you don't really know each other, and you can come in and ask all the stupid questions and be really, almost disarmingly, open in your questioning with individuals." Andrew Tyler, Chair of Ainscough Crane Hire and multiple private market businesses, founding partner of Ancient Horse Limited

Technology: How have you used technology to create change?

"When we all grew up … You could throw money … or people at a problem … We now live in a world in which we have three levers ... In any situation, you can say, 'is the right thing to deploy financial capital, or people, or technology?' … One of the most important things for any board right now is to ask, 'is my organisation capable of deploying a three dimensional, not a two dimensional, approach to any of the situations it faces?'" Doug Gurr, Natural History Museum Director, Alan Turing Institute Chair, ex Amazon China President