How to fire a superstar CEO
Whether the board of OpenAI was right or wrong in trying to fire Sam Altman, it’s clear they failed in their execution. And botching such a drastic step leaves you with more than burned fingers: you'll make the CEO more indispensable than ever, throwing fuel on the hubris fire.
Altman, Musk, and the dangers of superstar CEOs
While there’s a big difference between the drama at OpenAI or Elon Musk’s shenanigans at X and the scandalous downfalls of Sam Bankman-Fried or Elizabeth Holmes, the common feature is the larger-than-life leader who is seemingly bigger than their business. Why does this keep happening?
Business Books: What to read this month
Jennifer Sundberg & Pippa Begg have spent a lot of time thinking about how boardrooms can function better. But as co-CEOs of Board Intelligence — an online portal where company directors can view, comment, and collaborate on important documents — they have realised that the decisions made at the top of a company are the minority of all of those taken in a typical workplace.
Three hallmarks of a governance game changer
As a governance professional, what can you do to elevate your role, heighten your impact, and change perceptions of the profession? Discover the three hallmarks of a governance game changer and how you can use them to shape your governance career.
How to fire a superstar CEO
Whether the board of OpenAI was right or wrong in trying to fire Sam Altman, it’s clear they failed in their execution. And botching such a drastic step leaves you with more than burned fingers: you'll make the CEO more indispensable than ever, throwing fuel on the hubris fire.
Altman, Musk, and the dangers of superstar CEOs
While there’s a big difference between the drama at OpenAI or Elon Musk’s shenanigans at X and the scandalous downfalls of Sam Bankman-Fried or Elizabeth Holmes, the common feature is the larger-than-life leader who is seemingly bigger than their business. Why does this keep happening?
Everybody in a business should ask questions every day — so why are we so poor at it?
Businesses need to tap into their organisation’s collective brainpower to find a steady supply of fresh ideas and breakthrough insights — not just for innovation but for marginal gains too. To do this, you need everyone in the business, from the boardroom to the shopfloor, asking questions all the time. The problem is, we’re not as good at it as we think we are.
How to revive your business
A few months ago, the Smiths Group chair and former 3M CEO Sir George Buckley set us a challenge: “The core of every business is dying — what are you doing about it?” His question isn’t easy to answer. You can’t replace a dying core with a few extra percentage points of margin. Innovation is the only option — but what does that take?
Removing board bottlenecks: How governance professionals can help organisations move faster
A director once told us his board needed a horizontal agenda to deal with its 20 “number one” priorities — and supporting boards like his to deliver a vast remit in limited time is a daily challenge for governance professionals. So, what can you do to help your board move faster?
Business Books: What to read this month
Jennifer Sundberg & Pippa Begg have spent a lot of time thinking about how boardrooms can function better. But as co-CEOs of Board Intelligence — an online portal where company directors can view, comment, and collaborate on important documents — they have realised that the decisions made at the top of a company are the minority of all of those taken in a typical workplace.
The power of collective intelligence
Our obsession with superstar leaders has made us lose sight of what really drives enduringly successful businesses. Board Intelligence’s CEO Jennifer Sundberg sat down with Andy Lopata, host of The Connected Leadership Podcast, to explore how collective intelligence trumps individual brilliance when it comes to unlocking performance.
The 3 communication rules holding your business back
Poor communication is the silent killer of big companies — and why we think of Xerox as “the photocopier people” rather than the birthplace of modern computing. In this article for CEOWORLD magazine, our co-CEOs Jennifer Sundberg and Pippa Begg explore where organisations go wrong and how we can make great communication an everyday habit.
Can hybrid meetings ever live up to the real thing?
As thousands start to gather in Glasgow for the COP26 climate summit, braving crowds, protests, strike threats, and price-gouging landlords, the question has been posed: why don’t they just meet on Zoom? It is friendlier to the environment, they have had months of enforced practice in using it, and — perhaps, just perhaps — it is a more efficient use of their time.
Urgent boardroom discussions are rarely particularly productive
Not all two-by-two matrices are enlightening. But one that describes the challenge of time management, popularised by Stephen Covey, the late personal development guru, is genuinely useful. Its subject is the completion of tasks and the four quadrants describe these as being urgent or not urgent, important or not important.