198. Another brick (Condition #46: Education)

I have feelings about governance education. On the one hand, the complexity and pace of change of external conditions that affect *every* organization means that basically every director and executive has their work cut out for them when it comes to staying up to date. On the other hand, education on those external factors – even when it’s designed for boards – basically never comes with guidance on how to, y’know, actually do something useful with that education once you’re back in the regular world of a board meeting. At least in my experience. Sure, they might say “here are some questions you could ask about, I dunno, AI and copyright or whatever,” but we all know that question asking does not a great director make. Maybe more concerning is that most education that has “corporate governance” in the title ALSO doesn’t make much of an effort to empower directors and executives to be more awesome at their job. It just seems to be obsessed with case studies of catastrophes, explosions, lurid affairs, and whatever. But understanding some worst-case scenarios is not the same as showing up and being a great director. Is there a moral to this story? If there is, then I think it’s to 1) make liberal use of your organization’s education budget by consuming every course, conference and publication that might give you new and useful knowledge, and 2) invest time and effort into imagining how you’re going to take that knowledge and use it in service of cultivating effective conditions for making decisions in your boardroom.