Why Most Boards Fail

“Often when you join a board, they have a policy regarding engagement with the shareholders that says you can’t engage with shareholders. There might not be an explicit policy regarding talking to the CEO, but it’s kind of implied that there are some gatekeepers, and that if you begin to talk with the CFO on the side, some people will view you with suspicion. Of course, those are the two key roles of a director. The idea that you can have a policy [like this] and that it will be consistent for decades is completely counter to the whole point of what a director is.”