Why greater stakeholder influence on board agendas is a good thing
Debbie Morrison • February 1, 2023

The world of business is changing rapidly.

New technologies like AI and machine learning are transforming the way we do everything from driving cars to delivering goods. And while these technologies will make our lives better, they also have the potential to create challenges for business leaders who don't understand them well enough or don't have time to learn them. 


So how do we prepare our companies and ourselves for this new era?


By ensuring that people with different perspectives are involved in decision-making processes at the very beginning of the innovation cycle—when key decisions about process change and technology adoption are made—we can ensure that these decisions reflect not just what's possible now but what may be possible in ten years' time when these technologies become more commonplace.



Today’s board directors must wrestle with an ever-expanding array of complex, strategic issues.

As you know, today’s business environment is changing at lightning speed. From new technologies and shifting consumer preferences to global economic forces, the board director must be continually proactive in addressing the challenges of operating the business. In addition, increasing shareholder activism has led to a greater expectation on boards to be visionary and strategic in their thinking.


The need for creative thinking becomes even more pressing as boards are expected to have more diverse skills than ever before—skills that are not necessarily related directly with operations or finance but rather with strategy, globalization and innovation. This means that investment decisions cannot rely only on financial projections but must take into account broader stakeholder viewpoints as well.



Those issues are getting more complex

We’re seeing a number of trends that are increasing the complexity and importance of board agendas:

  • The number of issues that boards need to discuss is increasing. This includes, for instance, the amount of money being raised by start-ups, or the increase in mergers and acquisitions.
  • The complexity of those issues is increasing. For example, there are more data sources than ever before; different stakeholders have different opinions on what data matters most; and so on.
  • The importance of the issues is increasing because they will impact the success (or failure) of your organisation in new ways going forward - whether it's your ability to scale operations or hire top talent.


Board directors are becoming more diverse, but not fast enough.

Greater diversity on boards is a good thing. The percentage of public companies with female directors has doubled in the last 10 years, but it's still far lower than one would hope—just 19% of board seats are held by women.


But gender is just one dimension of diversity. You also want to make sure that your board has members from different industries and geographies; people who understand the latest technology trends or who have experience in emerging markets; and those with different backgrounds, such as consumers rather than employees or shareholders.


These diverse viewpoints can help companies identify new opportunities, create innovative products and services for customers, improve their supply chains and harness new sources of funding (such as through crowdfunding). In short: Diversity can help companies thrive in an increasingly complex world where competition is fierce​.



Directors and CEOs need a new way to work together.

We believe that the current model of shareholder primacy and corporate governance is broken. It's time for directors and CEOs to change their approach.


New models of working are based on a premise of shared leadership between the board and management. This requires both parties to reframe their thinking about governance, which has much broader implications than simply making room for more discussion at the board level.

Key elements include:

  • Greater stakeholder influence over agenda items (e.g., environmental issues)
  • Larger budgets devoted to non-financial performance metrics (e.g., employee satisfaction)



Frameworks for collaboration between boards and executive teams.

There are a number of frameworks that have emerged to formalise collaboration between boards and executive teams. The most prominent is the Non-Executive Directors' Report (NED), developed by the UK Corporate Governance Code Committee in 2006. The NED aims to ensure that non-executive directors are involved in strategic decision-making and provide a link between the board and its external stakeholders.


The US Council of Institutional Investors (CII) also developed a framework for shareholder engagement that encourages greater engagement with institutional shareholders through an annual meeting review process. This helps build relationships with investors before proxy voting season begins, so companies can address their concerns before they have any impact on voting results at annual general meetings.


There are many more governance frameworks but ultimately, it is the responsibility of non-executive directors to ensure that communication channels between the board and executive teams are functioning effectively. 



Board Composition is a critical factor in effective stakeholder governance

A board should be made up of directors that have broad experience and understand the role of directors. This is achieved through a number of methods including inviting people to join the board who bring with them different experiences and skills, encouraging intergenerational breadth on the board, ensuring there are relevant stakeholder groups represented in order to achieve diverse insights into how to make strategic decisions based on broader perspectives.


To identify particular stakeholder expertise, boards may wish to consider using an organisation's skills matrix. Having an extensive induction process that includes education on key stakeholders is a critical step (this could include site visits or briefings on the organisation’s impact on the community). Ongoing education on particular stakeholder issues is also essential in enabling boards to better understand and address stakeholder priorities.


Key questions for the board to ask:

· Does the board regularly review the effectiveness of the organisation’s stakeholder governance vision/strategy?

· What independent, external data speaks to the organisation’s relations and stakeholder impact?

· Should the board engage an external party to assess the state of our stakeholder relations?



Boards should focus on the future of their business and industry.

Many companies focus their board agendas on compliance and governance – both of which are important, but boards should spend time exploring the future of their business and industry.


Traditionally, the core responsibilities of corporate boards include governance and risk oversight. However, there are many other things that influence an organisation’s success: stakeholders like shareholders (who own shares), employees (who provide labour or services), customers (who buy goods or services), suppliers or vendors (who sell products to the company) and communities (where businesses operate) are increasingly shaping board agendas through the decisions they are making such as; resignations, purchasing preferences and trade terms.



Direct engagement with customers

Boards also benefit from engaging directly with customers. This form of engagement humanises issues and can remind a board and an organisation of its core purpose. This does not need to happen all the time, but there can be a high return on investment when it does.

Some organisations begin their board meetings with a client story, or a client appearing before the board to share his or her experience with the organisation. This helps keep board members focused on meeting the needs of customers, and reminds them of the organisation's impact.



Customer advocates

In the financial services and energy sectors, customer advocates that report directly to the board or management are increasingly common. Whilst these interactions need not be regular but can provide boards invaluable intel. Advocates who work at the coalface and are often aware of systemic issues that could have significant reputational repercussions long before senior management.



Direct employee-board engagement

A complete picture of workplace culture can be gained through employee surveys, ‘town hall’ meetings, site visits and floor-walks. However, boards should also establish regular and independent opportunities for engagement with employees that enable the employee's own lens on culture, inclusion and safety issues.


It is important for directors to stay informed about the day-to-day operations of an organisation. One effective way to do this is by inviting employees to present and respond to questions about operational issues, projects, and initiatives at board meetings.


The above frameworks and tools are designed to help boards and executive teams work together to develop a shared understanding of the business and its future. They can be used in different ways, from providing a framework for conversations between directors and executives to supporting collaboration between different groups within an organisation. But their purpose is always the same: ensuring that boards and executives work together effectively so that they’re able to tackle today’s complex issues (and tomorrow's) more effectively.

Your Culture Report Won’t Show You This

By John Elliott • June 6, 2025
On paper, they were fully resourced. No complaints logged. No formal red flags. Delivery metrics holding steady. But behind closed doors, the signs were there. Delays. Fatigue. Silence in meetings where pushback used to live. And a growing sense that key people were leaning out, emotionally, if not yet physically. When the cracks finally showed, the conclusion was predictable: “We need more people.” But that wasn’t the real problem. The problem was trust. And most organisations never see it until it’s too late. The Hidden Cost of Disengagement In Gallup’s 2023 global workplace report , only 23% of employees worldwide reported being actively engaged at work. A staggering 59% identified as “quiet quitting”, psychologically detached, going through the motions, doing only what their job description demands. Source: Gallup Global Workplace Report 2023 Disengagement is expensive. But it’s also quiet. It doesn’t show up on a balance sheet. It doesn’t send a Slack message. Disengagement isn’t new, just silenced. And in executive teams, it looks different. It looks like polite agreement in strategy meetings. It looks like leaders shielding their teams from unrealistic demands, instead of confronting the system causing them. It looks like performance metrics still being met… while people emotionally check out. The issue isn’t always capability. It’s safety. Psychological, political, and professional. Many senior leaders don’t raise concerns, not because the problem isn’t real, but because they don’t believe they’ll be heard, supported, or protected if they do. And this is where the failure begins. The Leadership Lie No One Talks About We talk a lot about leadership capability. About experience, commercial acumen, execution strength. But we don’t talk enough about context. Every leadership hire walks into a culture they didn’t create. They inherit unwritten rules, quiet alliances, and legacy power structures. If those dynamics are broken, or if trust is fractured at the top, no amount of capability will compensate. According to a 2022 Deloitte mid-market survey, 64% of executives said culture was their top strategic priority. But only 27% said they actually measured it in a meaningful way. We say culture matters. But we rarely structure around it. And so new leaders walk in with pressure to perform, but little real insight into what the role will cost them emotionally, politically, or personally. We Don’t Hire for Trust. And It Shows. In executive search, the conversation is often dominated by pedigree and “fit.” But fit is often a euphemism for sameness. And sameness doesn't build trust, it maintains comfort. We rarely ask: Does this leader know how to build trust vertically and horizontally? Can they operate in a low-trust environment without becoming complicit? Will they challenge inherited silence, or unconsciously uphold it? Instead, we hire for confidence and clarity, traits that often mask what’s broken, rather than reveal it. And when those hires fail? We call it a mismatch. Or we cite the usual: “lack of alignment,” “wasn’t the right time,” “they didn’t land well with the team.” But the truth is often uglier: They were never set up to succeed. And no one told them until it was too late. The Cultural Infrastructure Is Missing One of the most damaging myths in leadership hiring is that great leaders will “make it work.” That if they’re tough enough, experienced enough, skilled enough, they’ll overcome any organisational dysfunction. But high-performance isn’t just personal. It’s systemic. It requires psychological safety. A clear mandate. The backing to make hard decisions. The freedom to speak the truth before it becomes a PR problem. When that infrastructure isn’t there, when the real power dynamics are unspoken, good leaders stop speaking too. And the silence spreads. What Trust Breakdown Really Looks Like Often, the signs of a trust breakdown don’t show up in dramatic ways. They surface subtly in patterns of underperformance that are easy to misread or excuse. You start to notice project delays, but no one flags the root cause. Teams keep things moving, quietly compensating for the bottlenecks rather than surfacing them. Not because they’re careless, but because they’ve learned that early honesty doesn’t always earn support. New leaders hesitate to make bold calls. Not because they lack conviction, but because the last time they did, they were left exposed. Board reports look flawless. Metrics track nicely. But spend five minutes on the floor, and the energy tells a different story. These are not resource issues. They’re relationship issues. And the data backs it. According to Gallup’s 2023 State of the Global Workplace report , just 23% of employees worldwide are actively engaged. Worse, around 60% are “quiet quitting.” That’s not just disengagement. It’s people doing only what’s safe, only what’s required, because trust has quietly eroded. Gallup also found that managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement, a staggering figure that reinforces just how pivotal leadership trust is. When people don’t feel psychologically safe, they shut down. Not dramatically. Quietly. Invisibly. What’s breaking isn’t the org chart. It’s the ability to speak plainly and be heard. And by the time it’s visible? The damage is already done, and someone calls for a restructure. “Low engagement is estimated to cost the global economy $8.8 trillion, 9% of global GDP.” Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2023 So What’s the Real Takeaway? If you’re seeing performance issues, before you jump to headcount, ask a different question: Do the leaders in this business feel safe enough to tell the truth? Because if they don’t, the data you’re reading isn’t real. And if they do, but you’re not acting on it, then they’ll stop telling you. Leadership doesn’t fail in obvious ways anymore. It fails in the gap between what people know and what they’re allowed to say. And the price of that silence? Missed opportunity. Reputational damage. Cultural decay. Sometimes, the problem isn’t who you hired. It’s what you’ve made it unsafe to say.

The Energy’s Gone, But Everything Still Looks Fine

By John Elliott • May 27, 2025
Why Culture Decay in FMCG Is a Silent Threat to Performance It doesn’t start with resignations. It starts with something much quieter. A head of operations stops raising small problems in weekly meetings. A sales lead no longer defends a risky new SKU. A team member who used to push ideas now just delivers what they’re asked. Nothing breaks. Nothing explodes. It just... slows. And from the outside, everything still looks fine. The illusion of stability In food and beverage manufacturing, where teams run lean and pressure is constant, performance often becomes the proxy for culture. If products are shipping, if margins are intact, if reviews are clean, the assumption is: we're good. But that assumption is dangerous. According to Gallup's 2023 global workplace report, only 23% of employees worldwide are actively engaged, while a staggering 59% are "quiet quitting ", doing just enough to get by, with no emotional investment. And in Australia? Engagement has declined three years in a row. In a mid-market FMCG business, those numbers rarely show up on dashboards. But they show up in other ways: New ideas stall at the concept phase Team members stop challenging assumptions Execution becomes rigid instead of agile Everyone is "aligned" but no one is energised And by the time the board sees a drop in revenue, the belief that once drove the business is already gone. The emotional cost of cultural silence One thing we don’t talk about enough is what this does to leadership. When energy drains, leaders often become isolated. Not because they want to be, but because the organisation has lost the instinct to challenge, question, or stretch. I’ve seen CEOs second-guessing themselves in rooms full of agreement. Seen GMs miss red flags because nobody wanted to be "the problem". Seen founders mistake quiet delivery for deep buy-in. The emotional toll of unspoken disengagement is real. You’re surrounded by people doing their jobs. But no one’s really in it with you. And eventually, leaders stop stretching too. We train people to disengage without realising it Here’s the contradiction that most organisations won’t admit: We say we want initiative, but we reward obedience. The safest people get promoted The optimists get extra work The truth-tellers get labelled difficult So people learn to conserve energy. They learn not to challenge ideas that won’t land. They learn not to flag risks that won’t be heard. And over time, they stop showing up with their full selves. This isn't resistance. It's protection. And it becomes the default when innovation is punished, risk isn't buffered, and "alignment" becomes code for silence. Boards rarely see it in time Boards don’t ask about belief. They ask about performance. But belief is what drives performance. When culture begins to fade, it doesn't look like chaos. It looks like calm. It looks like compliance. But underneath, the organisation is hollowing out. By the time a board notices the energy is gone, it’s often because the financials have turned, and by then, the people who could've helped reverse the trend have already left. In a 2022 Deloitte study on mid-market leadership, 64% of executives said culture was their top priority, yet only 27% said they measured it with any rigour . If you don’t track it, you won’t protect it. And if you don’t protect it, don’t be surprised when it disappears. The real risk: you might not get it back Here’s what no one likes to admit: Not all cultures recover. You can try rebrands. You can run engagement campaigns. You can roll out leadership frameworks and off-sites and feedback platforms. But if belief has been neglected for too long, the quiet ones you depended on, the culture carriers, the stretchers, the informal leaders, they’re already checked out. Some have left. Some are still there physically but not emotionally. And some have started coaching others to play it safe. Once that happens, you're not rebuilding. You're replacing. So what do you do? Don’t listen for noise. Listen for absence. Absence of challenge. Absence of stretch. Absence of belief. Ask yourself: When was the last time someone in the business pushed back? Not rudely, but bravely? When did someone offer an idea that made others uncomfortable? When did a leader admit they were unsure and ask for help? Those are your indicators. Because healthy culture isn’t silent. It’s alive. It vibrates with tension, disagreement, contribution and care. If everything looks fine, but no one’s really leaning in? That’s your problem. And by the time it shows up in the numbers,t might already be too late.