PROSECUTING IDEAS Intellectual honesty involves coming up with an idea, refining

PROSECUTING IDEAS

Intellectual honesty involves coming up with an idea, refining it, then refuting it. If it survives refutation, then it’s something to work with.

As a CEO, I had an interesting time with board members. It took, in some cases, years before some board members would understand that I used the board as a vehicle for refuting my ideas. I would bring an idea to the board. Usually somewhat early in the process, and advocate for it. I advocated it to see if they could shoot holes in it. It’s a very rational process. If I cannot defeat their arguments, or find a way to solve them, then the idea isn’t viable.

In the past, I feel pretty strongly that if your board consists of owners, and your owners are involved, then they should support an idea. They cannot usually anticipate the future well enough to support valuable ideas that are counter to trend. So involving them in the decision and getting them to adopt them makes them better independent actors despite their lack of visibility. I did succeed in that objective. I’ve succeeded every time.

But I’ve also set the stage for making the organization fragile – vulnerable to a board who feels more confident and empowered than it should be: when you must act and act quickly to sieze opportunities, or avoid threats, your board is now trained to argue with you, and feels entitled to do so — even obligated to do so.

Today I would do things differently. I would test my ideas with a management team, then use the board entirely as a financial counsel. And never the two shall meet.

This is another example of where academic personalities and business personalities serve different purposes.