By Chisom Obiudo
It’s the first board meeting of the year. The agenda includes familiar items: financial results, risk reports, and compliance updates.
The CEO presents impressive numbers, assuring the board that the company is on track. Directors listen, ask a few clarifying questions, and move on to the next item.
But as the meeting wraps up, something feels incomplete. The discussion focused on what’s already happened. What’s missing is a conversation about what’s next.
Many boards remain stuck in operational oversight, reviewing past performance, approving decisions, and monitoring risks that are already known. This approach may feel reassuring, but it is not enough to guide an organisation through uncertainty and rapid change. Boards must evolve from simply overseeing management to leading the conversation about where the company is heading.
The board’s role is not to manage day-to-day operations — that responsibility lies with management. Instead, the board is responsible for setting the organisation’s direction, ensuring resilience, and encouraging leadership to think beyond immediate challenges.
To fulfil this role, boards must move beyond reviewing historical performance and start asking forward-looking questions that challenge assumptions about the business environment.
Too often, there’s an implicit belief that markets will remain stable, customer preferences will evolve predictably, and competitors will stay within familiar boundaries. While these assumptions may have held true in the past, today’s environment is far more volatile. Disruption occurs rapidly, often from unexpected sources, and organisations that fail to adapt risk being left behind.
Boards should actively assess whether their current strategies are prepared to handle these shifts. Are they ready for technological advancements such as artificial intelligence that could reshape their market? Are they considering potential threats from industries they’ve never viewed as competitors? Are they keeping up with evolving customer behaviours and expectations?
Future-focused questions force boards to confront these uncertainties, helping them identify risks before they escalate and uncover opportunities that might otherwise be overlooked.
Consider a more practical approach. Instead of asking, “Did we meet our targets?â€, ask, “Are these the right targets for where the market is heading?†Instead of confirming that risk frameworks are in place, ask, “What risks aren’t showing up on our reports, and why?â€
These questions push the conversation beyond routine oversight and require leadership to think deeply about challenges that could jeopardise the organisation’s future.
The world is moving too fast for organisations to rely on past performance as a reliable indicator of success. Disruption can come from unexpected places — emerging technologies, shifting customer expectations, regulatory changes, or sudden market realignments. What worked yesterday may not work tomorrow.
Strategic boards make uncertainty a core part of their conversations. They discuss trends that could reshape their industry within the next three to five years, explore vulnerabilities, and evaluate how best to prepare for these changes. They ask what bold, transformative moves the organisation should consider, rather than settling for incremental improvements.
These questions cannot be answered by reviewing more reports. They require insight, foresight, and a willingness to challenge the status quo. A forward-thinking board doesn’t accept complacency; it pushes leadership to explore scenarios they may not have fully prepared for.
Making this shift requires intentional effort. It starts with redefining the board’s agenda. Instead of filling meetings with operational updates, boards must carve out time for future-oriented discussions. Strategy, resilience, and value creation should take precedence, without disregarding financial oversight or compliance.
A board that spends most of its time looking backwards risks missing critical opportunities to shape the future. It must shift its focus from what has happened to what could happen next. This isn’t about ignoring past performance; it’s about ensuring that decisions are relevant to a rapidly changing world.
The Chair is instrumental in driving this change. An effective Chair sets the tone for future-focused discussions, ensuring that each board meeting prioritises emerging risks, new opportunities, and trends that could reshape the organisation.
They build a culture of curiosity by posing challenging questions that disrupt comfortable narratives and push directors to confront potential blind spots. These conversations may be uncomfortable, but they are essential for building strategic resilience and preparing the organisation for what lies ahead.
Governance has evolved. The traditional view of the board as a body that simply approves decisions, monitors performance, and ensures compliance is no longer fit for purpose.
Today’s boards must adopt a new approach to governance, one that prioritises curiosity over certainty, encourages insight rather than data, and explores scenarios that may seem unlikely but are still worth preparing for.
If your board spends more time reviewing what has already happened than discussing what could happen next, it’s time to make a change. Boards that cling to past performance will always lag behind.
True leadership isn’t about approving the past. It’s about shaping the future.
*Chisom Obiudo is a seasoned legal and corporate governance practitioner. She serves as the Chief Legal Officer at the Namibian Law Reform and Development Commission. Chisom holds a Master’s Degree in Corporate Governance and certificates in Non-Executive Directorship, AI Professional Skills, and Legislative Drafting.
