Board Matters podcast: "There are no silly questions here" with Jana Rangooni

Jana Rangooni CMInstD sits on both the boards of the Paralympics New Zealand and Toi Mai Workforce, while also serving as the Bay of Plenty representative on the Institute of Directors National Council.

In this podcast, she stresses the importance of directors having curiosity and a willingness to ask relevant questions, even if they are difficult.

“One of the key roles of directors is to understand things,” she says, “and to understand what is going on in the world and the environment we operate in.”

Asking questions is the only way to understand the implications for the organisations that directors govern, she says.

“It’s really important that directors constantly test why we do things. It is easy to do things a certain way because you were successful for a period of time. You have to constantly challenge yourself as to why you are doing something a certain way, why you are not doing it differently and why it will continue to work for you in the future.”

Useful answers often emerge “about three layers of questioning down”, Jana says, so it is vital that directors are prepared to question beyond initial answers that, on the face of it, seem to have covered all bases.

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