What I’m reading - Lloyd Mander

Helping boards and leaders to reveal their “group-level potential for cognitive diversity” is part of Lloyd Mander’s role as executive director and principal at diversity consultants DOT Scorecard.

Based in Ōtautahi, Christchurch, his governance roles cross over into sectors that include early-stage ventures, not-for-profits and commercial entities.

Lloyd is a Chartered Fellow of the Institute of Directors’ (IoD), Chair of the Canterbury Branch, a member of the IoD’s national council, Chair of Korimako Care Limited (Bellbird Hearing), and an advisory committee member of the St George’s Hospital Society.

This week, Lloyd shares a book about . . . getting things done when things go wrong.

What is the governance or business book you’re recommending?

How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors Behind Every Successful Project, from Home Renovation to Space Exploration and Everything in Between, by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner

How would you describe the style of writing?

A very approachable, narrative style where plenty of facts and figures are seamlessly conveyed through well-written anecdotes and ‘war stories’ – and when it comes to projects there is no shortage of entertaining examples of things going wrong!

What drew you to the book?

I read this book following not one, but two recommendations from director colleagues.

In my opinion, the best governance or business books draw you in and continue to hold your interest without becoming ‘homework’. This book is a great example, with the co-authors providing compelling and academically rigorous content that is very readable.

What resonated with you the most?

Facing the reality that, despite the great importance of larger (and even smaller) projects, time and time again execution of these fails to meet expectations – whether due to poorer than anticipated benefits ever being achieved, budget blowouts or delivery time delays, often a combination of all three.

The reality check is that only one in 200 projects meets the trifecta of benefits, budget and time targets (based on a database of 16,000 projects from 20-plus fields in 136 countries).

The book provides inspiration that projects do not have to be this way, as well as a toolkit to support directors in their oversight and interrogation of projects being contemplated – or undertaken – in the organisations that they are responsible for.

What is something you’ve taken away from the book that now follows you into your board roles?

Although this book focuses on projects, it is certainly not targeted at those who have ever had “project manager” in their job title. I feel this book pitches its message at just the right level for a general governance audience.

Key takeaways for me included:

• Any ‘big’ project (think big for the organisation/individual, complex, ambitious, risky) can suffer from optimism bias and political considerations, so beware of these leading to hasty decisions or unrealistic expectations.
• ‘Strategic misrepresentation’ is prevalent, or even inevitable, from those promoting a project or pitching for the work required to complete it. This leads to overly optimistic forecasts, poorly-defined goals, and often better options being disregarded to get the intended project approved/committed so that it is already locked-in with path dependency when more realistic information comes to light.
• An overrun in implementation time tends to lead to a cascade of other issues such as increased complexities and a higher risk of project failure. Therefore, minimising the required time window for project execution is critical when increasing the likely success of a project. I recently observed an example of good practice on this point with a commercial premises roofing repair. A number of roofing maintenance actions were required so the contractor planned the work by applying the maximum available worker resource, so that it could be completed in the shortest time period. This reduced the risk of weather delays, the need for costly temporary covering, or disruption related to unexpected labour unavailability or supply chain issues that might arise in the future.
• When planning a project, spend more time interrogating whether it is the right thing to be doing. If it’s still a ‘yes’, then you should actively experiment with the approach that should be used to a much greater degree than you would usually, for example try many different permutations with modelling.
• In general, solutions involving repetition (modularity) are far-more likely to be successful than bespoke, novel ones.
• Repetition through previous domain expertise is also key for successful project execution. Perhaps not a particularly surprising recommendation, but I’ve seen many occurrences of someone fairly ‘green’ being given responsibility for a critical project.
• Adjust your forecasts with reference to similar projects that others have undertaken before. This is both a reality check and a pragmatic way to factor in the unknowns and complexities that are difficult to account for when building a cost budget, or project plan timeline, from the bottom up.
• The risk involved with many projects has a ‘fat-tailed distribution’, i.e. the project is usually not equally likely to go significantly better than expected, or significantly worse than expected. If it ends up going wrong, it could go very, very wrong.

How does reading feed into your governance practice/learning?

I’ve heard it said that although successful leaders may have quite different traits and approaches, one commonality is their high level of curiosity.

As a leader, I’m certainly drawn to feeding some of my curiosity through reading. This covers a wide range of topics but, given that my consultancy practice is focused on decision-making, cognitive diversity, culture and governance spaces, it is certainly skewed towards these topics.

For me, there are two key elements. Firstly, making ‘reading for learning’ a regular habit and, secondly, putting relevant learning into action – whether through sharing insights with board colleagues or investigating if the organisation could obtain value by putting something into practice.

Who should read this book and at what stage in their governance career?

Given the increasing importance of projects across almost all organisations, combined with a woeful outcome record for the execution of these projects, I would suggest that this book should be recommended reading for ALL board members, including those leading our largest commercial and governmental organisations.

Clearly, we governors have more to learn in this area.

When you’re not reading about business or governance, what kind of books are you likely to pick up?

For downtime, I tend to alternate between historical fiction (such as Bernard Cornwell’s Last Kingdom series, and Sharpe series) and political/action fiction (Tom Clancy – original books, Vince Flynn), usually as e-books or audiobooks.

Clearly escapism is the priority with these!

What are some of the most pertinent governance issues at the top of mind for you, and why?

People and performance.

It feels like we’ve rapidly passed through the Covid-induced ‘great resignation’ and straight into the ensuing ‘great talent shortage’.

Staffing volatility and gaps across our management and teams hardly seems like a platform for great organisational outcomes and increasing productivity. Instead, it has set boards up for ‘firefighting’ and distractions for years to come.

As a Cantabrian, hopefully this will not come across as too parochial, I’d like to highlight the Crusaders Super Rugby team as an example of good practice in the people and performance space. For decades they have had a developmental approach involving an academy, where investment is put into players and coaches to get them to be as good as they can be. In New Zealand, this means playing for, or coaching, the All Blacks.

This of course means that the most successful players/coaches ultimately become unavailable to serve the Crusaders but, nevertheless, this approach works because there is a longer-term pipeline of talent – first attracted, then fostered, then ready to step up and continue the positive legacy.

I would be excited to see boards spend more time considering their organisation’s ‘academy’ for talent development including CEO succession.

What has been the most surprising thing you’ve discovered about yourself and others while being on a board?

How much individual director contribution can be enabled (or wasted) depending on those around them, and how they interact. This has certainly been an inspiration for me to actively consider the dynamics and culture around the table of those boards that I have served on, and has inspired my research interests relating to other organisations.

If there was anything you want to see more of at the board table, what would it be, and why?

More smart experimentation and organisation learning.

When boards are facing complexity, they should firstly ensure that diverse perspectives are brought to bear on the matter, and that these are genuinely considered.

Second, as by definition, complexity means that you cannot be sure that you’ve made the right decision (at least not until a later date). Solutions should be tested in a way that provides valuable learning, whether it turns out to have been the ‘right’ decision or not. This approach is also a great fit with fostering psychological safety around the boardroom table – and with executive teams, too. 

If there is a book on your radar that you’d like to share, send an email to: Sonia.yee@iod.org.nz