Innovating Leadership:
Co-Creating Our Future

Resources:

To learn more about Helle’s work, check her organization’s website: https://competentboards.com.

Hella’s latest book – Stewards of the Future: A Guide for Competent Boards – is available in hardback at https://amzn.to/42AJUlo, and for Kindle at https://amzn.to/3UAwcNo.

Our host, Maureen Metcalf, posts a newsletter every week on LinkedIn. You can subscribe here.

She’s also written several award-winning books on leadership development. You can peruse and purchase them here.

Books we’re reading for fun or personal development right now include:

• Three Rocks: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller, the Man Who Created Nancy by Bill Griffith
• The Five Lost Superpowers: Why We Lost Them & How to Get Them Back by John Reid, et al
• The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
• The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin

Guest(s):

Guest(s) Bio:

Board members and executives in over 55 countries hold Competent Boards ESG, Climate, and Biodiversity Designation and Certificates thanks to Helle’s visionary online and bespoke education programs. Her vision is that board members, investors, and those advising them need to be informed about sustainability and other material issues that shape business of today and tomorrow – How can you make informed business decisions if you aren’t informed?

Helle is a business lawyer and a state authorized public accountant (Denmark). She serves at the Nasdaq Center for Board Excellence, the World Economic Forum (WEF) Expert Network, and Accounting for Sustainability (A4S) established by HM King Charles III, among other roles. Her recent book, Stewards of the Future: A Guide for Competent Boards has become an Amazon bestseller on board governance.

Transcript
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Maureen: [00:00:00] This is Innovating Leadership Co-Creating Our Future. I’m your host, Maureen Metcalf, founder and CEO of the Innovative Leadership Institute, where we help leaders be future ready. I’m delighted to invite to join us on this mission today. Helle Bank Jorgensen, CEO of Competent Boards and returning guest.

Today we’re gonna be talking about AI, Boards, world Economic Forum Risk Report, and recent research by Competent Boards. So Helle, we’ve got a lot to talk about. Welcome.

Helle: Well, thank you so much. This is good to be back.

Maureen: You just came back from the World Economic Forum. What are your biggest takeaways from that exciting experience?

Helle: Last year’s theme was a fragmented world. This year’s team was rebuilding trust, and somehow all of that was [00:01:00] this year. A lot about AI but in a fragmented way. So this thing about rebuilding trust and when you and I are going to discuss AI today. Trust is a big, big word. Perhaps not even rebuilding, but building trust and also building hope.

So of course Dava is this place where you have people coming from all over the world and having interesting and sometimes transformative discussions. Act is of course, to take that from that little beautiful town called Davos and out to the world and then put that into action. And that’s where, again, AI can help us or it can do the opposite.

So lots of discussions about ai. Also a lot of discussions about a lot of other issues that we perhaps can discuss.

Maureen: Let’s jump in with AI and specifically the question of fragmentation, AI helping. And like any new technology, the [00:02:00] risks and the opportunities are both present and the gap between the two is significant.

Helle: In same panels, you saw fear and you saw hope, and you saw people that said You really need to be scared and afraid. And then you said, people that said, oh, we need to do something here. And others say, well, it’s, it’s already happening at the moment. And yes, we need to have the guardrail. In place. And then the other things like hope.

See all of these opportunities we have when suddenly you have that power behind you in terms of ai. But clearly, like with everything else, we need to ask the right questions. And we also need to make sure that we can see a little bit around corners and see what can be the downfalls of this, what can be the things that really can give trust and hope that I think are some of the key words at the moment.

Maureen: I heard a couple of questions as you’re saying, we need to be asking the right questions. What are the guardrails? What are the opportunities? What are the [00:03:00] risks? And I would add from our work, how do leaders lead effectively in this era? Because some of the things we need to do are building on prior skills and some of the things we need to do, we didn’t need to do before.

We didn’t need AI expertise. Because it was a thing that didn’t exist.

Helle: Maybe we didn’t think we needed that extra brainpower, if you can put it like that. But we just also have to ensure that when we make those decisions, that as you say, we have to write information, and at the end of the day, we can ask AI to come up with a lot of thoughts, ideas, decisions.

But at the end of the day, you are the person taking the decision, and especially if you’re in a boardroom, you can delegate the task. But you can’t delegate your fiduciary duty. You can’t delegate that responsibility, and I think that’s one of the big questions that we all need to ask. Do we understand what’s happening?

Are we aware of the biases [00:04:00] that’s embedded based on historical information we cannot expect to see around corners? So you need that human brain, that human thinking to actually use the information, and that’s one of the things that I’m a little bit afraid of from time to time. It’s very easy to say to ai, here’s all my board material.

Give it a read. Give me the 10 pages instead of the thousand pages, and tell me what questions I should ask. But what happens there is that, one, you might have been giving your strategy to the outside world, but two, you can’t delegate your own decision making to ai. Well, that’s not fully true. There are companies out there that now have a robot, AI robot as a board member, and heavily relying on that one.

Maureen: Let’s take a side trip. I’m so curious about that, and that seems like as a board member, I can use ai. But there were too many still hallucinations and blind [00:05:00] spots. That human judgment in conjunction with AI is crucial.

Helle: Yeah. This company that I said now I have, uh, appointed AI robot as a board member is out of Hong Kong and using it to help in terms of investment decisions.

So that might be a place where you say, this is area where we have. Put so much insight into the robot AI to help us make the right decisions. But there are so many other areas where you probably will have biases and other things that you wanna make sure that you don’t end up in a place where the AI have made the decisions and you have not.

Are we sure that that is the right decision

Maureen: as I’m using it, it does the first drafts of a lot of things I do, and in some cases it’s 90% right or 90% complete. ’cause often there are just gaps. It wouldn’t know. I’ve never. Just used a hundred percent of an AI product and there are other times that it’s [00:06:00] 20% right on something that’s very nuanced and specific, and I shouldn’t expect it to have all of the information that I am paid to bring to the situation.

Helle: You are thoughtful leader and making those. Assumptions that saying, okay, you know, this is like a copilot. This is like someone that is helping not taking over your work. Having said that, I asked AI to write a poem about the Future Boardroom and what came back, I posted directly as one of my LinkedIn uh, newsletters because it was just beautiful.

There’s so much fantastic things to play with in that regard. You just need to know, like with everything else, what is it you’re playing with? What is it you’re using?

Maureen: Funny you mentioned poems because I just went through an exercise my mom passed. We had probably like most people, tubs of photos, and so I shipped those off to someone to.

Create a couple of albums. So my life [00:07:00] went from seven tubs to three books. At the beginning of each book, I used chat, GBT to write a poem that summarized that 20 year period of my life. So interesting that we talk about story as well and how do we. Things like poetry to see some themes that we may not have seen.

And yet you are doing the QC to make sure it’s consistent with your vision of the future of the boardroom.

Helle: Correct.

Maureen: What is the biggest risk you see? Then’s

Helle: clearly a lot of risk here and, and one thing is how we use it, but also how others are using it. And that goes back to my point in terms of trust.

We now have. Companies where AI generated not only voices, but images have stealing money, but kind of like where poor employer or employee have been in good faith in terms of who is it that’s not only calling [00:08:00] me, but also who is it that’s on my screen? So that trust of, what is it? Who am I talking to right now?

What are the questions that I need to ask to verify that? You are indeed, Maureen. How do we do that in a way where we don’t also lose that trust in each other? So every time I pick up the phone, am I to ask a question to just make sure that you are you right? And we need all of us to be trained in. How do we discover if this is a person, an email, a document, whatever it is that we can trust.

Unfortunately, there’s so much missing and disinformation out there. Right? And the same goes in terms of trusting companies and trusting board of directors where others can use your voice to bring out information. I put out a article, and I think it was Reuters also picking it up in [00:09:00] terms of so much green hushing.

At the moment where companies, not necessarily, they’re doing a lot in terms of sustainability and climate, et cetera, but they’re not necessarily talking as much about it as they used to. So that’s kind of like that green hushing. But by doing that, you also open up for someone else using your voice. For someone else using your company and being that the director or the CEO to communicate not what you had intended, but something that suddenly will ruin a reputation, et cetera.

So we need, I think, all of us to start building that trust with our network so that someone will say, ah. Maureen would never go out and say that that must be fake, but we don’t know what it is that you normally talk about and what’s your use in different things. Everyone could in, in reality, you know, use it.

You used your own personal to [00:10:00] congratulate comforts and boards right? At our anniversary,

Maureen: yeah. And that was our digital twin. I ran by my students. How do you want us to identify those videos that are made with a digital twin? Not by me, because I don’t wanna misrepresent even my own stuff with my own digital twin.

For the humor stuff, we call her fomo, FAUX mo for Maureen, for the learning content, we call it Maureen’s Digital Twin, but for the students it was important to identify her as not me. Interestingly, the platform we use, Hagen doesn’t allow jewelry or glasses. So if you see my glasses, it’s me. The real me.

And if I’m wearing jewelry, it’s the real me.

Helle: This is where I put on my glasses. But actually in Davos, there’s two fantastic women that took a picture and then you get jewelries that you don’t have on. But [00:11:00] by ai. They then put your earrings. So opportunities all there, kind of like from that more fun stuff.

Maureen: Mm-hmm.

Helle: To clearly using ai. Also, when we come to sustainability and climate and biodiversity issues, et cetera, it’s everywhere. Right. But going back to, we need to make sure that we know what kind of information we are basing our decisions on, but also we need to know what are the questions we need to ask to ensure that it is not misinformed or disinformation, because we have a lot more of that at the moment.

And that’s of course, getting out everywhere and being picked. We know that from an AI point of view, what it is that’s out there that’s being picked up. So the more disinformation that’s out there, the more risk it is that the data you’re getting might not be the truth, whatever the truth is.

Maureen: I’m looking as we speak at the global risk report for 2024 and in the two year time [00:12:00] horizon.

The top risk they call miss and disinformation, but in more detail it’s AI generated miss and disinformation as the biggest risk in the two year window. Interestingly, it drops to fifth in the 10 year window, but we’ll see in 10 years where it is really.

Helle: Yeah. You can also argue that if you looked at the risk report from last year, you would seem much more in terms of.

What you’re also seeing the 10 year frame in terms of climate, many of the issues that unfortunately are also facing us, but clearly right now, missing disinformation is on the top. This is the perception, right? We need to look at who are answering. The questions in terms of the world economic risk, and it’s kind of like perception.

I believe it’s 1500 people or something like that. So there’s no doubt missing disinformation at the moment is top of mind. Also, when you talk to the board of directors, when you talk to business leaders. And when you talk in terms of [00:13:00] governments, we are looking at the year of elections and we know that there are missing and disinformation that will impact how people are voting.

It’s a huge issue in relation to democracy because what kind of information are you trusting to inform you for the future of a country? There’s a lot in that space at the moment, and clearly it’s a little bit like cyber security. You can do a lot to be resilient and to prepare, but it’s kind of like there’s less that’s out.

Trying to find those that are bad girls and guys behind, and you can say a little bit the same with mis and disinformation. It’s very much a fence to say, how do you ensure that you don’t? As an individual or as a company or as a country, but you need to be aware of it,

Maureen: especially if we look at the motivation for those bad actors.

In some [00:14:00] cases, it’s not to promote in our country, Biden or Trump or Nikki Haley, it’s to promote discord, and in that case. Who benefits from the foundation of democracy being undermined, and that would be across all democracies in the world. I forget what the statistic I heard in the competent boards call, 60% of the global population is gonna have elections in the next two years.

Something like that.

Helle: I think a little bit less. It is a huge, huge amount of us. It’s us, eu, et cetera, et cetera.

Maureen: I assume if I’m watching a presidential debate live. That it is actually the candidates speaking, but if it’s not moderated, the clips and memes that show up later may or may not be real.

Helle: Yeah.

And as you say, you’re a shoe and I guess we all do that, but I think questions to ask. What am I looking at? What is it that those that are broadcasting it, what is it that they intend for you to be [00:15:00] looking at? If you watch this board, whatever it is, if there’s ads or something in, do you see everything that’s going on?

No, you do not. Right. So it’s just human beings need, mm-hmm. To be aware. And unfortunately, perhaps question a little bit more than we normally would do. And that goes to trust and goes to hope because I think we all hope for a world where we could trust each other and where we could have that information that is bring humanity to a better place.

But yes, you’re right, there’s a lot of actors. There was people that just think that this is super fun to try to make something else happen, right? I don’t think you have only one motivation behind it, and there will also be something that you think you’re doing for good, but may actually do the opposite.

And that’s again, a question where you need to ensure that, what are the biases? Being that in innovation, what is it the for prompts [00:16:00] that you are asking for, and therefore, what are the results you’re getting back? How do you ensure that you look at the biases that could be in that material before you just say, okay, that’s fine.

We’ll go ahead.

Maureen: Can you give an example of where you’ve looked at materials and asked that question, what is the bias and how you would sift it out? Because I’m thinking of something I looked at recently and there was a clear gender bias at the board level, you’re seeing areas where that’s crucial. And how that could influence a decision.

Helle: Yeah, and and same as you’re talking about the example that just came to mind, I get to see a lot of reports, also those reports that goes out to the public and fantastic report about all of the good things from this company. And also talking about to your example, the diverse workforce, et cetera. And then I looked at all of the pictures and I only saw one gentle on those.

I brought it forward and everyone was like, [00:17:00] oh, I hadn’t even thought about that. So you need to have those ask, and you could probably have asked Hi to say, Hey, does this actually represent our diverse workforce? But often we don’t ask the questions. We look at the material and then we say, okay, focusing on other things that perhaps the full picture of the information you’re getting.

Which is another thing. Those small snippets that you see on online, et cetera, those small snippets that are taken out of a bigger being, that speech or something else can give a very, very different message.

Maureen: That seems like the risky part. Full disclosure, we’re using an ai, we’re piloting to do snippets of our conversations.

It would be interesting to go back to ensure that the piece. It pulls out accurately reflects what we intend because it’s our reputation. Our team will do that. But I can’t guarantee that if somebody else runs a [00:18:00] similar tool on one of our interviews, that it doesn’t slice together. And you and I are saying we hate ESG.

It causes harm to the world.

Helle: Yeah. Don’t say that. Okay.

Maureen: I’m just saying somebody could

Helle: Yeah.

Maureen: Twist when in fact, the opposite is true. Your work is. To bring ESG to the world and I’m certified in it because I deeply value it. Is there someone who twists?

Helle: Yeah. And that’s where you can also ask in terms of saying, when I talk about sustainability environment, social governance, climate, biodiversity issues, what’s the information that you’re getting?

Geopolitical issues, shareholder and stakeholder engagement, disclosure, human rights, all of those things that, you know, we go through that kind of like have that lens of. See the risk and see also the opportunities, but also have that safe space to have the discussion where you can trust the people in the room [00:19:00] and understand what is it others are doing.

We just put out a module on AI from the top and understanding also the ethical aspects. How do you ensure that you use AI in an ethical manner? That is going to be more and more important question. And again, there might be times where it’s very obvious it’s not ethical, but there will be a lot of times where you need almost someone to ask the question from our.

Before you see, hmm, this might not be the right way to use these data, the examples of data that’s been used to sell to communities where should probably not have had sold to those communities, but you get all the data and you see the opportunity, and so again. You need the board of directors, you need the management as well to ask the right questions.

Say, is this the right thing to do? Just because I can do it, just because I have the data, but is it the right thing to do? [00:20:00] What are the consequences? Can we see around the corners who can use this data for something else?

Maureen: And who’s harmed

Helle: and who is harmed? Exactly.

Maureen: One of the things I love about the Competent Boards Forum that you’ve created for alumni is that you’ve created a space to pose topics and really grapple with difficult issues.

There was one a few months ago that people were navigating an incredibly sensitive issue about the Hamas Israel situation. Boy, such charged emotional sides on both sides. Everyone has, especially people in the region, a very precious point of view, and yet you created a space for people to engage in that difficult conversation.

For board members, especially that are making these decisions for global enterprises, we need a place where we can have those conversations because we don’t probably have that at the coffee shop [00:21:00] next door. Precious,

Helle: thank you. And and yes, the global dialogues and that safe space. And we talked about all the elections coming up.

We are talking about fragmentation. We are talking about geopolitical issues. Go back and look at the risk report, both in terms of geopolitical risk, but also the consequences of that displacement of people. Voluntary migration. We all live on this one planet called Earth. We all impact each other. We can say we don’t want their pollution or we don’t want whatever, but sorry, we are on this earth together and, and somehow it is going to reach us.

So having that global dialogue, having that safe space, having that opportunity. To say what it is that one feel, but in a safe way. I think that is so valuable and, and you’re totally right. There’s a lot of both board members, but also others that says this can then bring back and [00:22:00] reflect. Have more confidence in going out and having that conversation, uh, other places as well, because you have heard it from not only one side, but from people from around the globe

Maureen: to inform our board members to see around corners.

As you’ve said, that there are implications I may not have considered because I said in the US the same would be true of our friends sitting in Dubai or Egypt. And yet having those voices in the room allows us to identify some of our blind spots.

Helle: And it also helps us figure out, are we ahead? Are we behind?

And sometimes there might be people that have that thought that, oh, we are further ahead in this country than someplace else. And when you suddenly then realize. No, that’s might not be the truth. That helps you also as a leader, that’s another important part of being part of a global forum like Compass and Boards.

Maureen: Absolutely [00:23:00] agree. You’ve talked about AI and hope. We talked a lot about risk and dis and misinformation, and yet I am hopeful. It sounds like you were also hopeful that beyond the little stuff that we do, that there were. Big opportunities to increase access, to increase equity, to solve climate problems and health problems.

Where is your hope coming from?

Helle: You just said it, and when I look at some of these companies that we also work with and that is starting to collaborate, companies that you would normally. Two very different industries, why should they collaborate? But when it suddenly comes to where you include ai, when you can look at technology, you start to have some very powerful partnerships.

And again, you know, the people are meeting from all over the world and different industries and often. It’s like, oh, but it’s not my industry. No. But that’s where you can learn a lot and then [00:24:00] you start those partnerships. So I would say in the area of climate, both in terms of, uh, mitigation, adaptation also in biodiversity and technology in that regard, as you say, access to different insight, both what we giving insight to in terms of, of.

Conversant boards and all that, but there’s so much more insight that’s out there. Again, there you have to be careful with the missing disinformation. That’s another area, of course. But yeah, I would say I’m hopeful that we as competent leaders are asking the right questions and for me it’s okay and it’s actually really good to say.

I don’t understand that. Can someone please explain? I’d rather hear that both boardrooms and anywhere else than just going ahead without asking the tough questions. But when we ask the questions and we understand it and we see the opportunities, there’s a lot of opportunities out there. It’s like co-pilot.

I spoke at the [00:25:00] Salesforce Dreamforce a lot about AI and also, you know, how do you ensure that it is your co-pilot, but that you are in charge. That’s one of those things. And you the master or you’re the servant, and I will not hope that you are the servant, right, of the ai. You should be the master in that sense.

And that’s where I have a lot of hope, but I’m also afraid. There’s a lot that’s kind of like, ah, we just put it out to AI to make the decisions. That would not be the place that I’m hoping we’re going.

Maureen: When I look at our top 10 list for leaders in the age of ai, one is analytics decision making and systems thinking.

Several different AI platforms can give me. Data, but it’s still on me to understand the system in which we’re inhabiting the interconnections. And I can ask it about the interconnections, but then I have to discern what’s missing and is that [00:26:00] information accurate. And then what are the best courses of action.

I may ask the AI to make recommendations, but as you point out, as a fiduciary, I am responsible. I can’t say that open AI did it for me. ’cause if that’s the case, then I’m way overpaid and you should just have a bunch of robots in the room.

Helle: Yep. And you can be fine and you can go to jail. I guess we can send the robot to Dale, but I’m not sure they have same impact.

So yes, you need to. Make sure that you are asking those questions, and that’s where my fear comes in from time to time. It could be, oh, it’s so easy now we have AI and can solve everything. It’s actually making your job harder because you have so much more information that you now need to say, is this really what you mean?

Is this really what you wanna say? Is this really what you wanna do? And it’s hard when the whole world’s collective inside. Weighs on your [00:27:00] shoulders and say you should go left. But in your head, on your heart, you say, no, we should go right. Whatever this decisions it is, how do you ensure that you make those informed decisions that’s not only based on what it is that AI is telling you?

Well,

Maureen: and that’s where good board governance and a truly deep collaborative process. Should help enable, because I would hope I could come to the boardroom and say, this is the data. This is my intuition or my belief based on a hundred years of experience. What are other people seeing, saying, thinking, feeling, doing?

And how do we collectively make a decision? Because I may have a trusted colleague who either sees the same thing I do that validates or has a completely different set of experiences that invalidates my intuition.

Helle: That’s what we want. We want that diversity of thought, and that’s where I keep saying, so if we all around the boardroom [00:28:00] table, ask our AI to read our materials and tell us what questions we should ask, you’re not going to have that much diversity of thought.

You are actually delegated. Not only you are responsible for making those decisions, but also that you are the director and you can’t do that. So yes, you need to make sure that you understand the information. The other thing is, and I mentioned that company that do have a robot around the table, you can say There’s a lot of things we can.

Do. We can ask at the moment when we go into a boardroom, have some discussions. There might be questions that we ask management to look into and come back the next board meeting. Could be that we have actually access to all of this information on a fingertip, and instead of of having to wait to next board meeting that you have all of that access or that information that you have access to and can get a much [00:29:00] quicker answer.

Again, there are a lot of things we need to be careful with in that decision, but having that internal brain trust of everyone and the information that lies within all of the systems, et cetera. It would probably be a fantastic resource, but again, it can also take us to places where we might not have the full understanding.

Maureen: Interestingly, as you talk about having an AI in the boardroom, I’m thinking of the prompt engineer sitting in the boardroom. So the whole tenor of the meeting may now change from we all show up with all of our reports and the things that were previously generated. To, Hey, this question comes up. Can we do a quick search of our internal reports to pull out this piece of information, the co-pilot piece, or let’s do a broader search to answer this question to your point that we don’t have to now wait for next month or next quarter.

The board meeting itself may change.

Helle: That of [00:30:00] course, depends on the board, the chair, the views. You do have boards that are very well functioning where. They then break out to look into something, come back and discuss that, and yes, clearly being that if you have a robot around the table or you basically have a device where you can ask questions, that can get you that information faster.

As long as we all the time ask ourself, what were the biases that was behind this information? Did we ask with the right prompt? Are we getting the information? Do we trust this information? Is it useful because this world there enough information. It’s what is the useful information? That’s the thing where when we sit and play a little bit with all of these tools, you can get down to a rabbit hole right in, in different things, but really understanding how to ask the questions and we know that there are fantastic people out there that’s now smarter than the rest of us in writing right [00:31:00] prompts, and we know that, that then give us more or less better results.

Maureen: Let’s shift to the question that you asked in your. Report measuring competent boards. How competent is your board? Can you talk about the report that you generated?

Helle: Yeah, I can indeed. We worked with Copen Business School, went in and looked at the Fortune 500 companies in Europe and the Fortune 500 companies in the US and looked at the different parameters for the board of directors to see inside the level of competencies related to sustainability.

And perhaps, uh, in context in Europe, we now have regulations that says that you have to disclose the competency of the management and the board of directors. You have the same in terms of the global standards coming up, et cetera. So it’s starting to get a compliance question as well as a [00:32:00] value creation question.

The result was that if you look at the full board of directors and see that it’s not only one person that has sustainability competencies, but everyone around the boardroom table, et cetera, we are in a very, very low point. I think it was about 2% when it comes to having the expertise, having the knowledge, having the training.

Then we have a bit more in US and in Europe and individuals. But I think what the report is saying is that we now are in a world where if you don’t understand all of these sustainability matters, you are risking not only the valuation of the company, but also the reputation of the company and the future of the company.

So how do we ensure that we upskill not only one person around the boardroom table? The board room as such, as well as the management because in that way you can [00:33:00] start making those informed decisions. Port has generated a lot of interest and clearly the big question that someone asked was, how come we don’t have more sustainability competencies around the board rooms?

And frankly. Being a person that have worked in this space for so long, but also worked with board of directors and business leaders all around the world, it’s not that strange. It’s an area that is relatively new. Yes, we talked about it 30 years ago, but from a board perspective, it’s now that you start realizing, and some boards have realized that years ago, and they are now in a better place than all of those that are starting to realizing it, but they are starting to see.

How do I ensure that I get my supply being that can I get the raw materials that I, I need or the fruit or whatever it is I need for my products, but also can I get them transported? We are seeing the Panama [00:34:00] Canal drying out. We are seeing Red Sea where we have more geopolitical uh, issues, but also trying out, we are seeing there are floods in Europe, so how do I get.

The transportation of my goods and services. The insurance companies asking questions, will they ensure the properties? Finance institutions asking questions, employees asking questions, customers asking questions. So from the board of directors at the moment, you’re seeing that understanding that these so-called non-financial matters, uh, are impacting the financials big time.

I see board of directors from all over the world joining our programs and want to have that insight. The more that they understand, the more they can see, oh, we can do this as an innovation, or we can reduce cost, or we can increase the value. And at the same time as as board members and prospective board members, they’re getting more and more [00:35:00] valuable because of these compliance demands.

Maureen: I’m thinking of weather related risks.

Helle: What? What?

Maureen: Something silly. I went to get a sample of paint. The cold snap in Texas last year froze all of a certain paint, which meant there was no white base for paint. For me, this is not terribly relevant because I. Just did something else. But if I run an enterprise that focuses on paint, if I am building buildings and I need the coatings to finish my buildings, it ripples through from a supply chain perspective.

And it’s just such little things that we wouldn’t have even considered. Like I don’t care if it froze in Texas. If I lived in Texas, I might. But from an enterprise perspective, the impact of how the power grid is interconnected across state lines and the supply chain. Can I ensure consistency of my product if it’s headquartered in a place that hasn’t attended to [00:36:00] those risks and not picking on Texas, we’re all seeing different risks in different locations.

Helle: Yeah, and you can add to it in terms of being that the products, the supply you’re needing. Also the people that you need. I mean, unless we are going to put AI robots in to do everything, you also wanna make sure that you have talent. You wanna make sure that that talent have a, a safe place to live. And so there are lots, lots, lots of dimensions at the moment.

And I know I say it over and over, look around the corner or think the unthinkable, but we need to train that muscle. Because all of those things are coming at us, and if we think that we will have the same environment around us in X number of years, well better think again. But right now I need to make decisions about where do I put my capital?

Where do I build my facilities? And in order to do that, I need to [00:37:00] ensure can I get the power? What kind of power can I get the employees? That will live there. Will there be the water that I perhaps need in my production? Will there be the roads, will there be the infrastructure? Lots of questions that we have not really been thinking about.

Things are changing and they’re changing very, very fast. Not only on all of the risk in terms of that we all can look into on missing disinformation and ai, et cetera, but also as you say, in terms of weather related events. Biodiversity loss nature that looks different than we have from the tipping points that others from our good faculty is talking about the boundaries that we are getting very, very close to, and perhaps even passing.

Maureen: We had a conversation with Dr. Gautam from Singapore University and she talks about a concept called Future Fluid. And so the idea that. Using more foresight models than traditional strategic planning models. How do [00:38:00] we anticipate and prepare for the range of futures we can’t project forward? What we’ve had in the past, Columbus has broken ground on the Intel chip manufacturing plant.

I happen to be a facilitator for our local water company with manufacturing plants, with data centers. How do we prepare? Because there is a finite amount of water in our current infrastructure. There is a finite amount of electricity. Given our current infrastructure. How quickly can we scale some of this stuff we want to build?

Just given the resources we have and not even thinking about how does that scaled infrastructure impact the biodiversity, the stability of our geology, all of those things that I think for most of us, we just assume we turn the tap on and the waters there.

Helle: And that’s where scenario analysis and having that planning, and again, we talked about ai.

AI can help kind of [00:39:00] like in terms of what are all of those things that you also need to be thinking about if we, again, have the right data. But yes, there are a lot of decisions. That are perhaps being made without really thinking through what could that future look like? And that means that your investment might, don’t get the return on investment that you had hoped, or even worse, give you a big bill instead of the intended use.

Maureen: And then adding back in the conversation you just had about labor, how quickly as we build manufacturing facilities, do we generate the humans who are going to work there? Attract the humans who are going to work there and create safe communities and safe environments. And then as we change the workforce with ai, how are we doing that ethically and responsibly?

It does seem like a range of questions that are just. Mind-numbingly complex

Helle: it is. And again, from a board of directors, we need to think about not only [00:40:00] what’s the purpose of this business and what is it we’re doing and what we’ll be doing in three years, how do we get our supply, et cetera, but also what’s the purpose of the board and what is the transition plan for the board of directors?

We talk about transition plans for companies, where are we transitioning towards all of that? We need to have discussed before we are starting a planned or facility somewhere. What’s the purpose of the board of directors to be in that transition? How do we look at the skills matrix? How do we ensure we have the right people at the board level?

Then yes. Also, in terms of the company, we know that if the basement is full of water or if it’s hard to get water, or if it’s too warm or whatever, that impacts the community. That impacts those people that’s working. That impacts the work. It also impact how well you can attract people. It [00:41:00] impacts the health, so, so there’s a lot of issues that you’re totally right needs to be on the shoulder of the board of directors and everyone else.

That’s kind of like saying, what does the future look like for this company? And then there is the ethical question that you asked. What about the employees? What about the employees that is joining a company is our role to ensure that they also are worth more when they walk out of that company. Is our role to retrain them.

Now, where we have ai that might take over some jobs. There are other jobs that they could take on. Lots of questions to ask. And we also know that depending on the economy, the answers might be different.

Maureen: They have to be different, right? If we’re running at a loss, I will forego retraining employees that we’re gonna downsize.

Compared to if we’re running at a profit and I’m not downsizing employees and it’s more complex than that,

Helle: again, you, you should have those discussions around the boardroom table, preferably before you are in this [00:42:00] situation. So be prepared. As I always say, lock favor the prepared. Only by having those discussions ahead of time, you’ll be able to, to navigate that from a competent board’s point of view, giving everyone that insight.

So they can navigate better in a very fragmented or or world that seems to be going all different directions and so much new issues are coming at the board members as well as the management, as well as us all.

Maureen: The crucial nature of having a competent board and even the definition of what competent looks like as we go forward.

What does governance look like as we go forward in a fluid future context? Because I don’t see a scenario where it’s gonna be become less fluid. So how we govern and how we upskill our boards becomes more crucial.

Helle: It does deep. The role for the board of directors oversight. It is have the insight. It is to have the [00:43:00] foresight.

Now it’s just insight and foresight on a lot more areas issues than it was before. And as you’re saying, more fluid in a harder to navigate in a more fragmented place. You really need to make sure that your navigation is good and that you have the insight and that you have the foresight so you can make those informed.

Decisions and provide the oversight to the company. That’s the role. It’s not easier and it will not be easier in in the years to come. We need to have the future boardroom of choice instead of just by chance.

Maureen: We’ll have extensive show notes. Listeners can go to our show notes to learn more about you, about competent boards.

For people who want to follow you. Do you have a website and a LinkedIn?

Helle: You have? Indeed, I’m indeed. On, on, on LinkedIn. My name, Helle Bank Jorgensen and website, CompetentBoards.com.

Maureen: Thank you hea. It’s always [00:44:00] a joy to get to share a conversation with you, with our listeners

Helle: and likewise. Thank you so much.

Maureen: To our listeners, thank you for joining us.

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