What should a board of directors focus upon in today’s world?  Likely not a hard question but you need to think about it.  The below thoughts arose in last night’s program presented by the New England Chapter of National Association of Corporate Directors (disclosure: I am former board member, now on advisory board).

Two major “headings” emerged: strategy and AI.

Strategy: with the world in flux for many reasons today (I hereby spare you the obvious list), strategy needs to be monitored closely and constantly.  Remembering that the CEO is the head of strategy and must be involved, guided and reminded to lead, what should directors be doing beyond working closely with the CEO?

Since so many current issues are in play which affect every business, maintaining a wide diversity of backgrounds among board members is desirable.  Selecting directors for the way in which they think about and tackle issues is more important than deep expertise in a given field.  In some instances directors today are themselves very short of time (dealing with issues in their own enterprises, serving on several boards each of which needs more attention); care need be given in selecting directors with requisite ability to spend the time needed and in formatting board meetings and retreats to be efficiently focused on key issues.

In all cases, financial literacy is a requisite for the board, and it is better if it is broadly spread.  Domain expertise is important but feeds into — what  —  financial performance!

When several issue may need substantial board attention at the same time, it may make sense to set up task forces consisting of one or two directors together with non-director support to analyze and report back to the whole board (efficiently breaking up tasks,  and for public companies avoiding the need to report “missed” formal board meetings).

AI: THE hot topic. Particularly relates today to production of company deliverables (hard goods or not) but, since AI will impact all company operations, the addition of an AI director often is not the solution (eg if you add such a person, do not turn all issues wholly over to them).That is because present staff understands the business more than a newcomer can.  And AI will not be the elephant in the room just for production of deliverables, as may appear to be its most typical utilization today; AI will totally transform every aspect of your company.

AI should not be assigned, at least for final decisions, to a committee.  It is a key strategic issue at every level and must be passed upon after discussion with the whole board and with CEO involvement.  It is useful for board members individually to achieve exposure and education to AI of course, but group analysis at each operational level of the enterprise is needed.  And AI at this instant is in fact not moving as fast as you may think, not necessarily calling for a need for an AI consultant — it depends (things will get faster later).

AI today can be a great tool in finding what is happening in the marketplace: both with your customers (present and intended) and with your competitors; make sure you are using AI to probe current events.

In light of the current job market plus the general fear that AI replaces low-level jobs, boards need to make sure the work force is being managed properly.  It is not necessarily true (it, well, “depends”) that entry level jobs should not be filled at this point.  And entry level people on hand at the birth if AI may prove valuable as the job mix moves upwards to utilize AI.  There also is a social component to maintaining your best workforce, which may vary given your business staffing model (some enterprises may thrive with major remote staffing while others perceive that at least some components of the staff should be in person a certain part of the time and AI can seem to be contrary to that latter perception).  And, at end of this part of the program it was suggested that perhaps the best employees in the future may not need a college degree….  (My add-on: college degrees may be used today as a test of intelligence and diligence [and finding workers you relate to culturally?] but the skills that directors ought to value may be somewhat different?)

Finally, this next comment was made by a panelist with great street cred so I invite you to consider: “statistical reasoning by AI is superb statistically, but it is only statistical reasoning and not ‘reasoning.’ ”  Numbers alone are only numbers and must not wholly drive judgment.