Board architecture, strategy, and governance: Mark A. Pfister on building effective boards

In this episode of The Middle Ground, Dr. Kathryn Ritchie sits down with Mark A. Pfister, known as “The Board Architect,” to explore how boards, CEOs and executive teams can work together to turn strategy into meaningful decisions and organizational performance.

Mark makes a crucial distinction: the same strategy needs to be viewed through different lenses. For a CEO leading operations, goals explain the what and why, strategy describes the how, and tasks and milestones establish the when and who. In the boardroom, the emphasis shifts to ensuring goals remain relevant, validating the strategic approach, and measuring progress—without taking over management's job.

The conversation moves beyond board composition on paper to the practical architecture of an effective board: the expertise directors bring, the diversity of perspectives around the table, and the overlap of knowledge that allows people to challenge an idea rather than simply defer to the only expert in the room. Kathryn and Mark also discuss the quality of boardroom dialogue, the importance of respectful challenge, and why a board appointment should increase—not end—a director's commitment to learning.

Key themes from the conversation:

• Modern director capability. Deep expertise matters, but so does breadth across leadership, strategy, governance and committee responsibilities.
• Proactive board architecture. Design the board the organization needs rather than replacing a departing director with someone just like them.
• Coverage and balance. Overlapping knowledge enables informed debate, while different personalities and perspectives strengthen collective judgment.
• The governance lens. Validate the strategic approach and measure progress without slipping into operational micromanagement.
• Questions that lead to decisions. Move beyond polished presentations and status updates to probing conversations that test assumptions and support sound decisions.
• Global leadership. Directors need to understand both local regulation and cultural context within an interconnected economy.
• Team intelligence and grit. Individual credentials are not enough; directors must work well together and support the CEO when conditions become difficult.
• Assessment followed by action. Board evaluations create value when the findings lead to development and changes in how the board operates.
• Culture starts at the top. Respectful board–CEO relationships model the behavior expected throughout the organization.
• Continuous learning. Emerging technologies and changing risks make curiosity a continuing responsibility for every director.

About Mark A. Pfister

Mark A. Pfister is a Non-Executive Director, CEO and Chief Board Consultant of M. A. Pfister Strategy Group, advising boards and executives across the public, private, nonprofit and private equity sectors. His work focuses on strategy, governance, board architecture, and technology and cybersecurity.

He is also the Founder and CEO of the International Board Director Competency Designation (IBDC.D) education and certification program, and the author of Across The Board: The Modern Architecture Behind an Effective Board of Directors. Known as “The Board Architect,” he coaches and mentors senior executives and directors on building more effective boards.

Read Mark's full biography at M. A. Pfister Strategy Group.

Watch the full conversation above—and read the complete transcript below.

Full transcript

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (00:02.506):

Mark, it's delightful to have you join the Middle Ground series. And really looking forward to this conversation, I very much see the importance of the board CEO executive relationship. And this is a space you've lived and breathed for many years. So perhaps we start there. What are some of the shifts that you've seen over the past decade or so? And what are you seeing are going to be the most critical things?

coming into 2027.

Mark A. Pfister (00:33.056):

Sure. Well, thank you, Catherine, for having me on. really, really a pleasure to be with you. So we've seen some major, major change over the past eight and a half to ten years. And a few of them I can list out that come to top of mind. one has to do with this move away from what we used to call the one trick ponies. So if somebody had a specific expertise area and that's where they spent their career, they came in and brought that one expertise area into the boardroom. We've moved away from that now. We're looking for more.

Of the directors that have deeper depth in certain expertise areas, and we call that their vertical knowledge areas, along with their horizontal, which is the broader brushstroke of expertise in the leadership, the strategy, and the governance realm. Now, when modern-day directors package themselves, we like to think of this as what we call on a board coverage and balance. And coverage and balance is the ability to get some depth of knowledge in a boardroom. The best way to describe this is if.

You have someone with a deep technology background on a board, and they're the only person with that background. Well, they propose something, the board has to vote on it, everybody has open mouths, they can't really weigh in on it, they don't have the background of that. So we look for coverage and balance in these boards with the expertise of individual directors spanning multiple, not just industries, but expertise areas. when it comes to packaging of directors, if we look at this for some of these changes.

In order for a director candidate, whether they're aspiring or experienced, we call it having their major and their three minors. So their major is specifically focused on what their area of expertise is. Even if it's by industry, that's absolutely fine. Their minors are typically three areas of proper modern day director packaging that focuses on the correlation to common board committees. So I know again, if I'm interviewing.

candidate for a board role and they have finance background, I'm also going to probe into areas to understand what other committee areas can they weigh in on or serve on for that matter. Now another trend that we see, which I I think is a great trend to see currently, is that nominating committees are more commonly taking on the end to end process for the appointment of new directors to their board.

Mark A. Pfister (02:45.35):

And this is a big change, I know, also for executive search and placement organizations because that tide has shifted. And it's mainly due to the fact that the fees associated with the placement of a director for a public company, especially in the US or North America, is an astronomical amount. It can range between $300 and $500,000 for that particular placement. So what you're seeing nominating committees do now, and a big portion of the consulting and the advisory work that I do is.

Bringing that expertise back into the nominating committee so the board as a whole can do the whole process from the sourcing of candidates to the vetting to the interviewing to the appointments and even to the onboarding and the orientation, having it all handled internally again. I think it's a great trend that we're seeing right now. And it's changed how both experienced and aspiring directors can truly land a role for a coveted board role without having to work through a

potentially biased process in in a in a larger search and placement organization.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (03:48.739):

And just to build on that, I'm imagining there was the old sort of belief that it was very clubby. That was certainly in the southern hemisphere where I originate from and also in North America. So the same group of people sort of moved around the chairs of board tables, so to speak. So how have you seen some of these shifts that change that sentiment, maybe perspective and the reality of that?

Mark A. Pfister (04:09.709):

Yeah.

Mark A. Pfister (04:18.114):

Yeah. And and you know, one of the things too, you can see directors, for instance, that were serving on Enrod's board that are still serving on other boards today. And we call this director laundering. And what it basically means is that a director that, whether they're successful or not, can have that ability to serve on other boards because they technically have the public company background. And by the way, when I'm talking today, I'm not just mentioning about public companies, I'm talking about privates, also nonprofit private equity boards, family office NGOs.

Sort of all the same. If there are nuances, I'll mention those areas. So one of the things that I do see today, and this also is again a trend for the last eight and a half to 10 years, the nepotism that we saw in boards has dropped drastically. And this is true throughout all regions of the world. And part of the reason for this is that boards understand that there is a risk when somebody does not follow a standardized process for the vetting, for the interviewing and the appointments. So

One of the things I like to do if if a client of mine or a board is open to enacting this is that if a seated board director makes a recommendation for a candidate and that candidate gets appointed, and that candidate does not work out in the first six months, not only is the new candidate excused from the board, but the person who recommended them also has to resign their position. So what that does is it creates this deeper sense

duty of care and duty of loyalty that we think about with board directors and their duty to your to the organization, also to the board itself. And it's a really nice way for someone to say, listen, I have a recommendation. I'm going to give you their name. Please feed them into the nominating committee funnel. And then they step back from it and they let that process take its, you know, take take the process basically in in what the standardization is.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (06:03.062):

Excellent. And you offer a credentialing program, I believe globally. What has that revealed to you? And also perhaps you could share a bit of the impact that you see your program and perhaps there are others similar around the globe. How has this shifted the whole stature and consequence of boards?

Mark A. Pfister (06:18.743):

Sure.

Mark A. Pfister (06:24.597):

Yeah. So, you know, I I I come from a background where I I view myself as a continuous learner and an ongoing learner. So I can honestly say I probably spent over a hundred and eighty thousand dollars in my career on board-related education areas. And one of the big things that always struck me with that was that yes, you can come out with understanding case studies of different organizations, everything from Theranos to Boeing, whatever we want to talk about, we understand what directors did right and what directors did wrong.

The key part that was always missing from that was two areas: the global viewpoint of true leadership for organizations, obviously in the boardroom. and also the ability for someone to package themselves as a modern-day director. So the course that we started many years ago, which started as a coaching program, then an education program, we added what's called the IBDC, the International Board Director Competency Designation to that in 2018.

And one of the again, the big differences of this is that it is of a global viewpoint. we're we're in the in the days today where, or the time frame today where what we consider to be a local or a micro director, that's someone who can serve in a specific region, it's a dangerous premise because we are in a global economy, we're in a global workforce, we're in global supply chains, we're in global data supply chains currently, a regional or localized viewpoint of how business is done, even for a two-person startup.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (07:24.982):

Mm.

Mark A. Pfister (07:50.168):

Can really be the death blow for that company. So our approach was to take a viewpoint of the macro director. And how does a director, even if they're not serving on an international company, they still have inputs and considerations to be aware of in that area. So some of the trends we see in this today are and that we have over 1,200 graduates now in that program with directors on every single public exchange around the world. So

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (07:51.606):

Thank

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (08:18.592):

Congratulations.

Mark A. Pfister (08:18.657):

in a short amount of time, it's it's it has traction not just because of the the learning aspect of it and the certification, but there's this hunger out there to understand what other regions are doing and how their leadership is run, the cultural aspects of of that leadership. so I hope this is answering your question, but but some of the trending we see around this, and there's a couple there's a couple I I wanted to think about be before today's discussion that that may be quite interesting. So

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (08:37.758):

It is.

Mark A. Pfister (08:47.379):

One of them is this that I've learned over the years and in spearheading this course with 20 other instructors. And it's the following. I find that the male directors, and hear me out on this before I the male directors typically will overstate their credentials, and they are more willing to sell what they have as part of their background.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (08:59.926):

Thank

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (09:10.966):

Yeah.

Mark A. Pfister (09:12.609):

And that's both in the aspiring and the experienced realm of directorship. And I I use that word experienced somewhat tongue-in-cheek because some of my experienced directors actually require more reprogramming than the new directors or the aspiring directors because of their previous experiences. When it comes to the female directors or aspiring or experienced, I find that they understate their credentials and they're not as open to selling what they have or as I say, selling themselves for for a position.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (09:26.934):

Yeah.

Mark A. Pfister (09:40.716):

Now, the way that's manifested itself in our program is that since the beginning, it's easily been 65% plus of individual directors that sign up are women. And the remaining percentage of that are men. So it just shows that, and I believe, by the way, that balanced boards, 50% female, 50% male, really do perform better for exactly what we're talking about here. There are pros and cons to both sides of this, of course.

But the course sign-up percentages between male and female tells exactly the same story. So it's quite interesting to see. When I work one on one with many candidates, both again aspiring and experienced, I have to take that into consideration to say I'm gonna focus a little more effort in this area so you have the equal advantage to both sides. So quite an interesting trend there. The other big thing to think about here, and I'm amazed every year this report comes out,

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (10:15.872):

Yeah.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (10:31.232):

Yeah.

Mark A. Pfister (10:38.071):

It's called the board monitor. It's put out by Hydric and Struggles. And every year when it comes out, I'm I'm chomping at the bit to get a copy of this thing. And when I get it, I I'm mainly looking for one number in there. I want to see for the Fortune 500 boards in the US, I want to see the number of newly appointed directors that have no previous public company board experience. And I have been blown away by this number. So if I compare this this statistic back to 10 years ago.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (10:59.851):

Mm-hmm.

Mark A. Pfister (11:05.899):

Or even more, that number was very low in the single digits, even closer to the lower single digits. Well, in the last five, six, seven years, we have seen a major change in that number. In fact, I would say right now the average is between 26 and 43% on a yearly basis of newly appointed public company directors with no prior public company experience. Now, this tells us a great story right now. And one is that

We are in the largest transfer of not only wealth but knowledge in the history of humankind. That also translates into the board space. So the amount of opportunity because of movement, we could say because of the baby boomer retirement, we could we could say because of the increase in technology and the acceleration of technology and in leadership decisioning, all of these things have allowed for others that may not have the prior C-level title.

or previous board experience to actually land board roles because of their expertise and their experience in a vertical area. And many boards now are willing to train and teach and guide on the horizontal areas. Used to be exactly the other way around. They wanted the horizontal and they were willing to train on the vertical areas. We are in a totally flipped world right now and it's a great thing for directors. It even affects how they package themselves, how they market themselves.

How it's easier today to draw board opportunities to you than it is to go and put your name on a database for a large search and placement organization. So the way that we, the way that we teach in our program also how directors should be drawing the opportunities to them, it's the inbound content marketing aspect to it, can really change the amount of opportunities that come your way and put you in a position that I believe that most directors should be, which is they should be saying no to more.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (12:58.07):

Mm-hmm.

Mark A. Pfister (12:58.334):

opportunities than they say yes to, because there is a risk to board directorship as well in terms of the companies and their discipline in true board directorship.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (13:07.51):

So, I mean, the comment you made about, excuse me, the you made about the difference between the way female directors present themselves and males, that's something that I've seen.

occurring in a range of other contexts as well, going for jobs, putting themselves up for promotion internally as well. So that doesn't surprise me in the board context. In terms of any major distinctions globally in different geographies, because as you say, we're moving to a situation where we've got

more companies that are just represented in different parts of the world, they might be listed on different exchanges and so forth. How do you manage that? How do you prepare directors so that they are cognisant of where their...

Mark A. Pfister (13:52.588):

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (14:01.886):

responsibilities lie, they need to draw upon, what they need to draw upon to really understand their responsibilities. Coming from Australia, we have quite a strict regime and yet it's got to be taken in context. How do you manage with that?

Mark A. Pfister (14:19.114):

Yeah. Yeah. I typically think of two areas immediately when I hear that question. One has to do with local regulation and the other one has to do with local culture. And both of those probably pr play at least equal parts, maybe the culture even a little bit more, in terms of the success of any director in any role. to be honest, it's not easy for a director who has done business in a single country to move into other roles where they're dealing with a different culture and a different regul regulatory type body.

Now, the regulatory body side to this is learnable. and most boards do have the ability through the internal organization to understand and have that check and balance internally for the regulation side to this. For example, in the US, the SEC, there usually are experts in those areas. Most board directors over a certain period of years become very familiar with that. They know the right the basic regulations around that, if not more in depth. The cultural components of this are typically where.

We get into a little bit of a harder or more difficult transition, I'll call it. That that typically can be an area of focus. So a good example of this is working with boards, say in Japan. Japan has a very different hierarchical hierarchical hierarchical structure as it relates to the etiquette of of of the culture. Even for a new director to sit in a boardroom in Japan is not the same as a director who comes in or has been on that board for so many years.

and we could make the argument that things stay the same and things change and they are somewhat similar, and that is true. but I will I will say this, Catherine. The the core tenets of proper leadership, especially as it relates to board directorship, it is a discipline, it is transferable. And I think what makes the part fun, actually, and without sounding cliche, is that to me, one of the one of the most fun aspects of board directorship is truly.

Aligning your expertise and your experience to the culture of that region. Now, on the other hand, I will also say that we have been in a global economy for quite some time now. So there is a little more understanding of a culture, one culture coming into a boardroom and the understanding that that's how they operate, this is how we operate, and letting certain things play out as they may. and that is quite interesting. There are many boards that are looking for.

Mark A. Pfister (16:39.912):

infusing that opposite or different culture into their environment to make sure that they are understanding where their markets are. So there's ways to leverage it. There are sometimes some possibly awkward scenarios that happen, but I view this all as part of that learning curve and and making sure you are of an ongoing type learning mentality is is the most important for any director.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (17:00.042):

Yeah, and that's great to hear as well because it did seem very staid, know, a decade or plus ago. Clearly the whole arena of strategy and the governance role that the board plays in strategy is crucial. We work deeply, as you know, in strategy development, but particularly strategy execution. What do you see? How would you describe a really healthy

Mark A. Pfister (17:20.758):

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (17:27.818):

board relationship role that they play in that context. What does that look like?

Mark A. Pfister (17:33.706):

Yeah, and and I'll tell you this this is an area that's near and dear to my heart. And probably I I would say in the top two, if not top three, areas of biggest missed opportunities with boards because of their misunderstanding of this. So I'll go back first to something I said a little bit earlier that just because you had a previous C level position or even other board director positions in the past does not necessarily make you what I would view as a grade A director.

So if if I dig a little further into this, one of the biggest challenges we see, and then I'll share a question with you that I ask in when I'm doing interviews or vetting for directors, let me just first say that and maybe it's easiest to look at it from the lens angle of a CEO, where during the normal day-to-day operations side, and I I stress the word operations, they should be viewing this very simple diagram of

Goals on one side, strategy in the middle, and tasks and milestones on the other side. So goals, strategy, tasks. Under their normal operations, they should be viewing the goals as the what and why, the strategy as the how, and the tasks and the milestones of the as the when and the who. Now, the minute they're done with their CEO update or CEO status update in the board meeting, they need to be able to shift that hat or change that hat into the governance lens, going from a leadership operations lens to lens to a governance lens.

And that same overlay again of goals, strategy, and tasks should change very clearly into the goals being an exercise of setting and ensuring the relevance. This is the governance lens. The strategy moves from the how to the validation of the approach. And the tasks and the milestones become the measure of progress. Not the not again the when and the who that's too tactical. We move that to the measure, measurement of progress. So

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (19:04.96):

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (19:18.07):

Yeah.

Mark A. Pfister (19:22.237):

In all of this, this is where I think we hit it off in our conversations about strategy. This is an area within the first 10 minutes of any vetting that I do, and probably the reason that most of my interviews only last 10 minutes is the following question. And the number of times, even if I share this question as I'm doing with you, and others will watch this and they'll know the question, but they won't truly understand the correlation to this unless they spend the time with this. Our course goes a whole module into this. The question is the following.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (19:25.792):

Yes.

Mark A. Pfister (19:49.952):

Tell me about your understanding of the interrelationship between strategy and governance. And the main thing I'm looking for in this, it doesn't have to be this long-winded answer. I'm looking for the change from the how being the strategy to the validation of the approach being the strategy. That fundamentally changes the questions that are asked by what I would expect of a grade A director in what they're asking and why they're asking it, because the correlation now becomes.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (20:13.098):

Yes.

Mark A. Pfister (20:18.035):

A question to validate the approach of the strategy, which then you can say what goal does that align with? And then if I'm curious, just by chance on the progress towards this, then I'll ask about a milestone or a task, but only from the measuring of progress. I don't want to know who's on it. I don't want to know those level of tactical questions. So that to me is the one of the biggest aspects that's missed by directors forever. This is the history of directorship, is changing that angle of the lens.

to ask questions that drive to decisions, not just drive to I I view answers, by the way, as different than decisions. And that also should be part of someone's strategy to say, how are we asking these questions? What are we looking for as the outcome of this?

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (21:01.526):

And as you and I have talked about before, this whole way of thinking and approaching those board conversations will be keeping it out of what I've seen far too often is lots of polishing the silver of PowerPoint decks. Ahead of the session, a show and tell and everyone nodding or asking questions, but not the probing.

Mark A. Pfister (21:15.285):

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (21:24.182):

the questions that would come into the validation or the what if this happened, what could you have expected would have been done differently and so forth that really force the executive to give that board a more rounded perspective. So I really appreciate the work that you do in that space. What advice would you give the board to stay out of that, this I still see a tendency of a show and tell and

gosh, you're not going to ask that question are you? Surely we don't need to ask any more questions. Whereas I really think that a board's role is they need to question until they feel really comfortable. And so I might stop there and just get your reflections on that.

Mark A. Pfister (22:09.013):

Sure. Well, over the years, I think and something that I've been passionate about over the years is what I call board architecture. And I'm gonna be very clear in this. I don't necessarily call a board structure. I view structure as more of the reactive look at what we have already. Board architecture is already putting that strategic lens on this to say how do we design a board properly? And that's not just from a startup board where you're it's the first board that's gonna be together, say for a private company.

I'm even saying if you have a director that's resigning or leaving the board or retiring, how do you go about this where you're not just placing, replacing Mary or Bob with another Mary or Bob? How are you going and looking more deeply at this? So to me, the trending has shown over the years that the board architecture having a true strategy and plan about the makeup of your board and not just the expertise areas. In fact, let me let me poke on that for just a moment, if I could, to answer your question. You tell me if I'm

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (22:44.854):

Yeah.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (23:03.456):

Yes.

Mark A. Pfister (23:04.725):

Tell if I'm on track here to answering your question. So, for the last 18 or so years, it's been my passion focusing on what makes great boards operate so well. And my book is on this too, across the board, which looks at the modern architecture of successful and and effective boards of directors. And what we find in this is that they have a plan that's not only focused on the expertise level of the person they're bringing in. And that expertise obviously has the the

Experience that's associated with it. But we look more deeply now. So, what my study goes into looks at really three main architecture areas of a proper board. And you can replace the word board with team here. This could work for any type of area of focus of a group of people. So the first area we call sphere of influence. This, of course, is the expertise areas. You're also looking for the ability for someone to correlate that to the operations component to make sure their strategies are implementable. And of course, that core leadership trait that they are.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (23:45.792):

this.

Mark A. Pfister (24:03.637):

Good good leaders. Now, most boards stop there. They say, okay, we got the expert we need. Let's move on. We appoint them. And then they realize this trouble later. The reason for that is they haven't looked at two other board architecture components that are equally important. The next one, and by the way, the one I described for sphere of influence, that's a vertical expertise area, right? We're typically talking about a vertical of area of knowledge. The horizontal, the next one we call a plane of congruence. It's the horizontal areas.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (24:22.228):

Yes.

Mark A. Pfister (24:31.028):

So this looks at looks at your expertise as possibly an incoming director and compares it against other directors. So for example, do we have a balance of personality types? And the easiest way to classify that is analyst, diplomat, sentinel, and explorer. So most boards look for another person like them. So you see boards that have all explorers in the technology realm. You have boards in the finance realm that are all analysts and diplomats. They're missing other viewpoints and other lenses.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (24:56.096):

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Mark A. Pfister (24:59.134):

So that's again what we call planes of congruence, the horizontal areas. And the third area we call coverage and balance. I touched on this a little bit earlier. This says, what types of overlap do you have of knowledge in the space of expertise that the organization needs and the board needs to debate properly? I used a technology expertise example earlier. So it's not just one person pitching something and no one else can question or challenge that. So in adding these other components, yes, it adds some complexity to the

architecture component of it, but the board itself comes out light years ahead when you have that type of dynamic between personality type, maybe a an overlap of or a distinction of age range on the board as well. All these areas make a difference.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (25:35.926):

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (25:43.157):

Yes. So diversity on many levels so that you're ultimately tapping into a rich cognitive diversity. Something that really stood out for me is the actual dynamic. And we work extensively with executive teams and at times executive teams and boards as well. And the ability to have really, really good conversations, I say reflective and generative dialogue where people

Mark A. Pfister (25:47.568):

Absolutely.

Mark A. Pfister (26:10.08):

Yeah.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (26:10.58):

listening to each other, exploring the views of each other, and then really able to come together, harnessing the full collective intellect. And notwithstanding diversity, there's a skill associated to having really good conversations. And just you mentioned Enron earlier, you've probably seen the HBR article that came out not long after that collapse.

in the 2000s and that the board article was something along the lines of what makes great boards great or something. What makes boards great I think. One of the distinguishing things was just how they have the right and the real conversations. What advice would you give boards to build that skill? It's something that they need to build every time they meet and come together and often these things are online. How do you grow that capability?

Mark A. Pfister (26:48.296):

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Mark A. Pfister (27:06.994):

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you above and beyond the expertise vertical area, obviously you're looking at someone who's very diplomatic and and has the ability to not view criticism as a personal attack on them. So one of the, or I should say, a few of the areas, and maybe it's worthwhile to dig into this for just a moment. So obviously the IQ measurement has been out there for some time. We don't necessarily have to put someone through a test in the board realm to understand their IQ. And it's I guess some of that's pretty subjective.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (27:24.694):

Hmm.

Mark A. Pfister (27:37.192):

But there are other areas that we want to measure. And we can do this formally or just through regular type conversation or seeding questions, as we say. So EQ or emotional intelligence obviously is a big one. How somebody reacts to challenges or reacts to things that are that are put in front of them. There's sometimes a test we use for that that we correlate. And I'll touch on those in a minute. So that's the EQ, this mindfulness intelligence is how you're positioning yourself in front of others. So the outward related type of positioning.

Another interesting one is TQ or team intelligence. And this is this is interesting because even boards that are made up of some of the most skilled directors I've ever met, they don't work well together. And for some reason, everything else checks the box. The EQ is there individually, the MQ is there, but they just don't work well together. There's ways to measure that. And that's that's TQ. There's a woman I work with, Solon Sharis, who has pioneered that area of team intelligence. And another one that I'm sadly

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (28:18.004):

Yes, same that.

Mark A. Pfister (28:35.892):

Had to add during COVID. And it's called AQ, adversity quotient, which basically correlates to the word grit. And the reason I say that I'm very sad I had to add that was during COVID times, we witnessed in boardrooms some of the most atrocious behavior that we ever want to see, to the point where even directors who were overboarded, meaning they were they were serving on too many boards, they were not available. They didn't have the time.

To join meetings for a specific company to have a quorum to vote on what their next step was going to be. Think about you as a CEO in an organization where the board doesn't even have time to meet to get a quorum for a vote. So, and the other side to this, I'll say, outside of the time, was that many d many directors, and I've witnessed, I witnessed this personally, they did not have the grit to persevere. They were so entangled in other things, that the emotional side that they did they

Forgot that they were there to also be the emotional support arm of their CEO. So one of the areas that we like to look at also is this grit aspect. And there are certain questions you can ask or certain scenarios you can propose to find out what someone's grit level is. Now, I will say you don't really see this until there's a time of crisis, but it's extremely important to understand if there are previous instances of somebody working through an an a situation that required grit.

That to me, again, I I hate the fact we have to measure that now or probe into that area. You would think that if you reach the C level or officer level of an organization, of course grit goes along with that. that is not the case. We witnessed that during COVID. We have to now look more deeply into that space.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (30:07.115):

Yes.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (30:13.07):

Thank you. And you mentioned measurement a few times, which I was really pleased to hear. mean, obviously there's assessments on CEOs and team and they can be done in a really wholesome and effective way because you mentioned right at the outset, voracious learning is so critical for all of us, particularly in this day and age. What do you see happening in the space of ongoing board?

measurement, self-assessment or external assessment, what are you seeing in the board measurement arena? What's good practice, best practice there?

Mark A. Pfister (30:48.913):

Yeah. Well, we we are seeing more of a pushback as as you can imagine on this today, because investors, especially in public companies, want to know and other stakeholders and public private PE boards, even nonprofits, they want to know what's happening with behind the closed boardroom doors. So and let me let me first mention there are ways from a measurement viewpoint to look at directors in a more holistic way. Now many boards are not willing to put their directors through

formal testing, I think it's valuable to do. And most most directors who are curious, if you remain curious, they want to know. So we can use very simple tests such as a Watson Glazer, which does a correlation to emotional intelligence, or we can use a Gordon personal profile in inventory GPPI, which is pretty close to what I would like to correlate to the mindfulness intelligence areas. But when it comes to the overall assessments,

Many boards are still doing self-assessments, which, as you can imagine, they receive high marks. They're doing their, you know, evaluating themselves. But there's quite a few, and I can use my example from a consulting and advisory standpoint where we implement these assessments and we dig much deeper. And there are parts of it that you want to be public, and other parts that you want more quiet on the internal side, as you would do in any personal scenario with somebody.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (32:07.434):

Yes.

Mark A. Pfister (32:10.586):

in working through the areas that they need to be trained up. But what's interesting is that this has moved in more recent years from not just the personal aspect of development for a director or any leader, but also to, and technology has done this, to also the external learning for expertise in areas that may even be outside of someone's comfort level or their industry vertical or or their knowledge vertical. And you can imagine technology is is the driver of this right now. So AI is a big one right now.

The next one that most boards I'm working with in the public space, not that we've moved on from AI, but we're talking more and more so about quantum. So quantum has become an expertise area for me as it relates to strategy and governance because it has to be. It's something that's that's coming and it's it's sooner rather than later. So the evaluation to me to answer your question is extremely important when you have

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (32:47.893):

Right.

Mark A. Pfister (33:03.933):

When you have directors that are mature directors in themselves, they want to know what they can do better. So they're open to having these evaluations done. Now, there are external groups such as ISS or Glass Lewis, especially in obviously focused on the public space. They want to see this. They want to see these things included. They want to know what's happening with the directorship internally. There is more of a public lens put on that today. And there is a correlation, by the way, also in the data that we see. Boards that truly do in-depth evaluations.

And then follow up and do something about it, focus on the areas that need to be focused on. They do come out ahead, they are more effective and efficient in their board operations and it shows within the organization.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (33:36.512):

Yes.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (33:46.199):

You would expect that that should in fact grow in occurrence. I've been involved in some board assessments and we've used a complimentary interview process where we're really listening to each of the directors individually to get their perspectives against a set of questions and then we bring that onto the table in an anonymized way but very often then the directors will put their names behind it and I think the more that directors recognise that

Mark A. Pfister (34:03.943):

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (34:15.888):

their growth is as important as the leaders in the companies that they're governing, the better. Look, one final question that I might explore is there are a whole range of dynamics that can occur between a CEO, the executive team, the chair and

Mark A. Pfister (34:20.957):

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (34:35.464):

and the board. And there are obviously clear lines. We're not wanting boards to be deep diving into operations and taking control and meddling where they shouldn't. And yet they have to be able to have the confidence and see enough of...

true execution to know that things are moving in the right direction and the organisation is progressing as it's representing itself to be. What's best practice here? What are the things, I don't mind if it's the five most critical things, or what would you advise? Imagine you're in front of the chair, the CEO, the board and the executive team. What's best practice for really good dynamics and working together?

Mark A. Pfister (34:51.048):

Mm-hmm.

Mark A. Pfister (35:18.375):

Yeah, I I I definitely think there is the comfort level with somebody to understand again, as I mentioned earlier, that a critique or pushback is not a personal attack. So there is a a level of maturity there where that understanding has to be there. Now, there's a dynamic here where the person that's delivering this has to be mindful, and the person receiving this comment has to have the emotional intelligence, also. So it's the the equal importance of MQ and EQ kind of working in tandem. I will say also that.

There has to be an understanding in an organization, especially at the C level and the board level, that the values matter. And I'm not talking about the touchy-feely side to this. I'm talking about the values equals the culture equals the organization's risk. So if the board itself is not able to interact in a mature and respectful way, they shouldn't expect that of the organization. So one of the big things I look for, and it we we can use what you

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (36:04.948):

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Mark A. Pfister (36:18.791):

The earlier part of your question of that dynamic between the CEO and the board. One of the first things I look for if I'm observing a board, I want to see that dynamic. Are they respectful in their communication? Is the board treating the CEO as strictly a status update person? Or do I see the partnership there? Do I see the CEO actually reaching out and leveraging the expertise and the knowledge and experience of the directors to help them in their position and their role?

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (36:34.326):

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mark A. Pfister (36:48.265):

And I will say there are times where it's extremely obvious where that's not happening. And let's be frank, many C-level positions and board directors, they re got to those positions because they're narcissistic sociopaths. It's true. It's true. They've they've steamrolled others, they've got where they got. And I'm not saying all of them, but there's a high percentage. So I look for that. I want to make sure there's the respect that's there in that interaction. And the other thing I want to mention in this is that many times when we talk about

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (37:05.168):

Yeah.

Mark A. Pfister (37:17.661):

Bettering a board or fixing a board, that is the reactive side to what I would view an appointment process that is lacking in its evaluation and its appointments. And what I mean by that is that if we go again from we go from the reactive structuring side and the fix of the existing structure, and we move that earlier into the architecture, the proactive side. What do we want this to be? We're in a whole different world later.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (37:29.643):

Mm.

Mark A. Pfister (37:46.311):

And it may be it takes a little bit of time, could take a few years for the roll through of certain directors to roll off of boards to get there. But it doesn't stop a board from doing that now. And that's that's an area that I get involved with quite quite often is how do we change the dynamic of this board? It starts with people that already have a baseline of that respect, that EQ, that MQ. It's not saying that they're not gonna learn more by doing this. I like to think I'm gonna I'm gonna be a lifelong learner of EQ.

and MQ and even AQ, the the the grit side for for you know that's open and open and honest conversation. But you want people that know that they will be continuous learners. No one's reached the epitome of their knowledge base because they received a board a board appointment position. That that mindset has to change that it's actually the need for learning becomes exponential at that point of an appointment.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (38:25.472):

Yeah.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (38:34.474):

Yes. Look, thank you so much, Mark. This has been a really interesting and also very important conversation. Three things I'd like to summarise, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that you've talked about that has given me great confidence in the progress of boards and obviously in what you're teaching and coaching and advising.

first is what you're talking about, be proactive, actually create the architecture of the board that you need and want and do that in a really thoughtful and informed way across a number of dimensions so that you end up with a diverse board.

who have the skill set to be able to engage and really fulfil the role. think the other thing you talked about, and I didn't really mention it at the time, but it was the strategic architecture that you, with your goals and the strategy and so forth, and the way you took those two lenses to that set of data so that the board not only could...

see what was going on but could then validate challenge more powerfully. I think having that common strategic architecture in an organisation, it creates the connection, it creates a consistent way of looking at the board's strategy and execution and allows both the CEO and executive

and also the board to fulfil their roles effectively. And then I end with your final comment there, being this continuous learner, recognising that it doesn't matter how senior you might be or important in terms of the role you might be playing, learning is to be crucial. So thank you so much for your time today. It's been an absolute delight having you on our show.

Mark A. Pfister (40:15.624):

That's right.

Mark A. Pfister (40:22.652):

Thank you, Catherine. It's been a pleasure.

Dr. Kathryn Ritchie (40:24.641):

Thank you.