The board of directors in any organization holds many important roles and responsibilities. The board’s strategic, advisory and supervisory tasks carry significant responsibility for the direction, oversight and long-term success of an organization. They approve strategies, oversee risks and performance, advise and challenge management, make significant decisions and ultimately hold management accountable. But how often… Continue reading Is your board as good as it could be?
Author: Mari Wallgren
Four months left of 2026: Are you where you intended to be?
As August turns into September, there are four months left in the year.It is a useful moment for organizations to look back at the goals andpriorities they set at the beginning of the year and ask a simplequestion: are we where we intended to be? Setting strategic goals, approving an annual plan or adopting a… Continue reading Four months left of 2026: Are you where you intended to be?
Looking into the futures
Leaders have always needed to not only know what is going on in the current state but also to try to predict what will happen in the future. Trying to make sense of the future has never been an easy task. Uncertainty has been the only constant. And currently, the speed, scale and interconnectedness of… Continue reading Looking into the futures
Learning and unlearning
The pace of technological development, regulatory amendments and changes in the market environment means that knowledge, skills and established ways of working can become outdated remarkably quickly. This does not mean that expertise has lost its value. Quite the opposite. In the context of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Deep expertise is needed, among other things, to… Continue reading Learning and unlearning
More information does not equal more transparency
Organizations today publish more information than ever before. Annual reports, policies, strategies, meeting documents, sustainability data, risk assessments and governance statements are made easily available to employees, members, customers and the wider public. The information may all be there. Yet stakeholders can still be left unable to understand what really matters and instead be met… Continue reading More information does not equal more transparency
Trust is an outcome of good governance
A recent Finnish survey on how lawyers are perceived revealed an uncomfortable contradiction: people trust lawyers’ expertise, but many are not convinced that lawyers put their clients’ interests first. This made me think about trust more broadly. We often speak about trust as something personal, built through integrity, empathy, honesty and good communication. These qualities… Continue reading Trust is an outcome of good governance
The biggest governance risk may be the one not discussed
There is a particular kind of meeting that should concern every board director and senior leader. The agenda is full. The papers are thorough. The discussion is cordial. Heads nod. A decision is reached. However, something important was never said. Not because anyone was hiding it. Not because anyone lacked the information. But because, somewhere… Continue reading The biggest governance risk may be the one not discussed
From the boardroom to the grass root level – policies don’t implement themselves
Many organizations have good policies. They are carefully written, properly approved and formally cpommunicated across the organization. And yet, when you walk the office corridors and talk to the people doing the actual work, you may find a parallel reality. The official version and the lived version are quietly understood to be different things. This… Continue reading From the boardroom to the grass root level – policies don’t implement themselves
Not deciding is still a decision
Most leaders I work with are not short of awareness. They see the complexity around them, they recognize the global disruptive patterns amongst which they lead. They understand that the environment is shifting, technologically, regulatory, competitively. They know decisions need to be made. And yet, in many organizations, those decisions keep getting postponed. But here… Continue reading Not deciding is still a decision
Common goals, collective progress
Most organisations have no shortage of ambition. What they often lack is alignment: a shared understanding of where they are, where they’re heading, and what it will actually take to get there. Without that foundation, even well-resourced teams can find themselves working hard in different directions. Common goals are not simply targets handed down from… Continue reading Common goals, collective progress