238. What are three things we wish management would explain to us in greater detail?

This season, every episode of OMG focuses on a question that directors really need to answer.

OMG is written, produced, narrated and scored by Matt Fullbrook.

 

TRANSCRIPT:

Question #36: What are three things we wish management would explain to us in greater detail? Without looking, what do you know about the appendix? As in, the little tube jutting out of most humans’ large intestines. I’m willing to bet that if I sampled 100 people listening to this episode, the only appendix-related knowledge that we all have in common is that sometimes something can go really wrong with a person’s appendix and it has to be urgently removed. I have a suspicion that for most boards of most corporations there are a few things about the business where the board’s knowledge is kinda equivalent to most people’s understanding of the appendix. Some of us might know a lot about it – maybe because we had acute appendicitis and learned it all the hard way. Like a director who may have gone through a crisis and was forced to learn all the nuts and bolts about some weird law or regulation. The rest of us might have *heard* of that law, and understand implicitly that breaking it is bad, but not have any idea if or how it might apply to THIS corporation. Same thing goes for companies with super complex operations. There are probably some things about the way your company works that you know are important, and that management refers to occasionally, but that nobody ever took a second to step back and say, “hey, I think I’d like to know more about that. It seems important!” I bet you can think of three things that fit that bill. Better to know now than after your appendix has burst.