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Boards at Work
long range planning
Long Range Planning 35 (2002) 91-108
Book Reviews Edited by Bruce Lloyd
Boards at Work Philip Stiles and Bernard Taylor, Oxford University Press (2001), 164pp., £30.00
Philip Stiles and Bernard Taylor continue to argue the importance of taking corporate governance seriously. This book is comprehensive and a must-read for those who wish to be upto-date and are committed to improving board performance. This book focuses on boards at work in the UK. It combines a literature review and the first fieldwork research study of UK boards since the Cadbury Report and all the changes that followed. The literature review is thorough and wide-ranging and indicates the key issues under debate. However, the review also reveals how young this subject is and the need for more research projects that are rigorous enough to stand up to close scrutiny. The research methods carried out by Stiles and Taylor are an attempt to find out what is happening to practice in UK boards. It takes into account the views of directors from a number of major companies. The methods, which include personal interviews with 51 main board directors, a questionnaire survey completed by 121 Company Secretaries and four company case studies, present a good description of current thinking about practice. It is no mean feat to gain access to the views of more than 200 people as well as gaining access to board papers. However, the problem of these methods is that they could reflect what directors want to be seen, rather than what is really going on. I would also welcome the views of the writers in further works concerning whether directors’ opinions and behaviour match the actual standards of behaviour required for good board performance. The book usefully outlines the multifunctional nature of the board and its main roles. These include three main areas: the board’s strategic role, the board’s control role and the board’s institutional role. The crucial task of the chairman is to manage all the board’s functions, his or her relationship with the CEO, as well as the dynamics between people. The establishment of trust between board members and management is considered to be a prerequisite for good board performance. The concluding
www.lrpjournal.com
section provides useful advice for board members who want to check how well they are doing against current thinking. Stiles and Taylor have shown remarkable ability to deal with the complexities of boards at work. I hope that they will be able to follow up specific areas in more depth and look forward to seeing more of the work in the near future. Lynn McGregor MD Convivium
PII: S 0 0 2 4 - 6 3 0 1 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 2 7 - 4
The Social Life of Information John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, Harvard Business School Press (2000), 252 pp., $25.95
Myopics may not make good managers, if we accept the views of the authors. We need to widen our gaze from the narrow focus on simple information and on individuals to the more significant world of knowledge and social networks. We must reject the view that the world as we know it will be atomised by information. Enough of the elements of the fabric of our society have survived their obituaries for it to be a time to call for the end of “endism”. Social life and community are the broad way forward. Information can be passed around with relative ease and, nowadays, scarcely belongs to anyone. By contrast, knowledge, made from that information can accrue added value and adhere to whoever knows and has built up useful expertise. Only people know; computers only have information. Only people are capable of being able to amass, assess, analyse information and take account of the amorphous material that surrounds us - such as context, background, history, common knowledge and social resources. It is only with the help of what is not in the information itself that sense can be made of it. “Bots” are not the answer. By themselves, they cannot undertake the quality of search, assembly, ranking and interconnection that can still be done by the human mind. As yet, it is particularly their lack of discrimination that means they cannot be “trusted” on their own. Nor do bots have any ethical dimension nor any morality. Unsurprisingly, the authors single out learning as the enduring need for societal development. They give several good and bad examples of how learning overcame “information worship” and vice versa. Orr’s study of the Xerox technical reps who established their own learning community is the good example. Chiat/Day’s failed attempt at dogmatic pursuit of an information-obsessed, anti-social work style is the bad. Anything that discourages the very human processes of lateral thinking cannot help learning. 92
Book Reviews
Long Range Planning 35 (2002) 91-108
Book Reviews Edited by Bruce Lloyd
Boards at Work Philip Stiles and Bernard Taylor, Oxford University Press (2001), 164pp., £30.00
Philip Stiles and Bernard Taylor continue to argue the importance of taking corporate governance seriously. This book is comprehensive and a must-read for those who wish to be upto-date and are committed to improving board performance. This book focuses on boards at work in the UK. It combines a literature review and the first fieldwork research study of UK boards since the Cadbury Report and all the changes that followed. The literature review is thorough and wide-ranging and indicates the key issues under debate. However, the review also reveals how young this subject is and the need for more research projects that are rigorous enough to stand up to close scrutiny. The research methods carried out by Stiles and Taylor are an attempt to find out what is happening to practice in UK boards. It takes into account the views of directors from a number of major companies. The methods, which include personal interviews with 51 main board directors, a questionnaire survey completed by 121 Company Secretaries and four company case studies, present a good description of current thinking about practice. It is no mean feat to gain access to the views of more than 200 people as well as gaining access to board papers. However, the problem of these methods is that they could reflect what directors want to be seen, rather than what is really going on. I would also welcome the views of the writers in further works concerning whether directors’ opinions and behaviour match the actual standards of behaviour required for good board performance. The book usefully outlines the multifunctional nature of the board and its main roles. These include three main areas: the board’s strategic role, the board’s control role and the board’s institutional role. The crucial task of the chairman is to manage all the board’s functions, his or her relationship with the CEO, as well as the dynamics between people. The establishment of trust between board members and management is considered to be a prerequisite for good board performance. The concluding
www.lrpjournal.com
section provides useful advice for board members who want to check how well they are doing against current thinking. Stiles and Taylor have shown remarkable ability to deal with the complexities of boards at work. I hope that they will be able to follow up specific areas in more depth and look forward to seeing more of the work in the near future. Lynn McGregor MD Convivium
PII: S 0 0 2 4 - 6 3 0 1 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 2 7 - 4
The Social Life of Information John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, Harvard Business School Press (2000), 252 pp., $25.95
Myopics may not make good managers, if we accept the views of the authors. We need to widen our gaze from the narrow focus on simple information and on individuals to the more significant world of knowledge and social networks. We must reject the view that the world as we know it will be atomised by information. Enough of the elements of the fabric of our society have survived their obituaries for it to be a time to call for the end of “endism”. Social life and community are the broad way forward. Information can be passed around with relative ease and, nowadays, scarcely belongs to anyone. By contrast, knowledge, made from that information can accrue added value and adhere to whoever knows and has built up useful expertise. Only people know; computers only have information. Only people are capable of being able to amass, assess, analyse information and take account of the amorphous material that surrounds us - such as context, background, history, common knowledge and social resources. It is only with the help of what is not in the information itself that sense can be made of it. “Bots” are not the answer. By themselves, they cannot undertake the quality of search, assembly, ranking and interconnection that can still be done by the human mind. As yet, it is particularly their lack of discrimination that means they cannot be “trusted” on their own. Nor do bots have any ethical dimension nor any morality. Unsurprisingly, the authors single out learning as the enduring need for societal development. They give several good and bad examples of how learning overcame “information worship” and vice versa. Orr’s study of the Xerox technical reps who established their own learning community is the good example. Chiat/Day’s failed attempt at dogmatic pursuit of an information-obsessed, anti-social work style is the bad. Anything that discourages the very human processes of lateral thinking cannot help learning. 92
Book Reviews