Friday, May 2, 2008

What is a great board?


I read an article about building a great board. You may think that a great board is an architecture composed of talented people. The article refute to the common truth. A great board is not a composition of geniuses. Actually, it's like a sports team. You know the USA basketball team in 2004 Olympic. The team was composed of great super stars. They were all NBA's super stars. But their record was just a bronze medal. Then what was their problem? The problem was that they didn't play like a team. They were so self-admired that they didn't do excellent team play. I think the board also has to do team play. If they trust their name value and do things individually, they will eventually fail in business.
Then how can we make a great board? I want to compare boards between USA and Korea. In Korea, becoming a board of director means that they get honor. As a result, they often do their work without any pay. But in USA the wage structure is so strict that even directors get payed from company. But Korea's problem is corruption of boards. For example, korean directors often try to receive black money and give important position to their relatives or families. There are few good points of Korean directors, but I want to catch one point. This is the cooperation. Actually, American directors perform their work individually and do their work very well. Even though, their results sometimes bad or fail. I think the core of problem is lack of cooperation. You know the IMF in Korea. When IMF invaded Korea, many people thought that Korea will bankrupt within a few years. But Korea survived from the economic crisis. What was the motive power of Korea? I think it was great cooperation. Many big companies' directors made great cooperation and overcame the crisis. In this reason, the cooperation of board is so important.
In general, there are many good things in American boards. Also, Korean board members have to learn the efficiency and talent of American boards. But I think that there are always competitive advantage in each country's board. If we want to make a great board for our company, we have to benchmark other companies. Instead of making a board with super stars, we have to make a board with shaded players and super stars.
20700067 entry # 8

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