Back in January 2020 (which seems like many years ago) I made a presentation to a conference on corporate governance. They asked for a “tactical toolkit” to help board members navigate through difficult times of transition.

Here’s what I came up with:

One of the most useful books I’ve read on the subject of corporate communications is Sidney Dekker’s Drift Into Failure (CRC Press, 2011). The book explores how large corporations responsible for managing complex systems frequently fail in the same, predictable ways. One of Dekker’s central conclusions is that often, these organizations are victims of their own success.

“Success narrows perceptions, changes attitudes, reinforces a single way of doing business, breeds overconfidence in the adequacy of current practices and reduces the acceptance of opposing points of view.”

Dekker, Drift Into Failure, Pg. 96.

Dekker digs deep into organizational failures, like the Challenger and Columbia accidents at NASA. He believes a lack of deference to expertise contributes to a certain organizational brittleness.

He says organizational systems which don’t embrace diversity of opinion and expertise will cease to explore new things and learn new things.

To avoid the brittleness that comes with success, I suggest the following:

• Listen more than you talk;
• Break down complex tasks into simple parts;
• Promote autonomy;
• Adopt a non-hierarchical structure–allow anyone to stop the assembly line;
• Always be a teacher and a student.