“Cossin distills 20 years of practice and confidential work with boards worldwide into one indispensable how-to guide.” – www.cslewispublicity.com
High Performance Boards: Improving and Energizing Your Governance, as the title implies, is specifically targeted for industries to analyse and construct or reconstruct their governing boards to better undertake their function in a shifting environment and in order to fluctuate with Covid-19 and/or other emergencies. As Cossin says,
MORE ON THE AUTHOR: https://www.imd.org/faculty/professors/didier-cossin/
“One unwise decision, without the right stewardship, can snowball in ways we haven’t seen before,” warns Cossin. “Well-governed organizations, on the other hand, are vastly overperforming despite the current crises,” Cossin continues. “The top-20 companies with the best governance in 2020 are not just succeeding. They’re thriving.” Didier Cossin – www.cslewispublicity.com
High Performance Boards: Improving and Energizing Your Governance is a guide that covers everything a corporation needs to know about choosing and training board members, including a manual per se for board members and what concerns should take top priority. Among other interests, Cossin suggests that board members “need to develop a broad working knowledge of advanced risk assessment techniques,” so that they can analyze the decisions made by management.
He covers solutions for crisis management and conflict management, illustrating his points with charts and case studies. He discusses fraud and accountability, best practices, subsidiaries, and other crucial concerns that boards need to take into consideration. High Performance Boards: Improving and Energizing Your Governance is filled with critical information that is necessary for success.
“…accounting and finance drive a significant proportion of board decisions. Directors are therefore expected to have a strong grip in these areas – but as we saw … financial illiteracy on corporate boards remains widespread.”
Cossin uses one person in part illustrates his points through her case studies. He follows one person in particular, Joanne Marker, throughout his discourse. I wish he would have included a small biography about this person as we are left wondering who she is. Her stories are interesting and illustrate his thesis, but it would be nice to know more about her if indeed she is an actual person.
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/High-Performance-Boards-Energizing-Governance/dp/1119615658
Cossin includes a chapter on creating a good management-and-board relationship, a crucial element for a well-functioning organization. He’s also included tests and exercises to be used for analyzing the health of the board as well as advise for boards and social media. Cossin has designed several check lists to fill in and consider on people quality, focus and dedication, information architecture, structures and processes and group dynamics.
“We therefore need to know more about the board’s collective processes and behaviors in order to understand and predict the quality of governance, and the resulting impact on the organization’s performance.”
In essence High Performance Boards: Improving and Energizing Your Governance is a comprehensive look at a company’s governing body. It is doubtful that Cossin has left any important factors out of his guide. His book is target-specific, and very detailed and I would recommend considering Cossin’s book as a guide for their organization.
Dianne Gardner
