Louise Broekman:
Welcome everyone to the Executive Insights Advancing Best Practice Workshop today. My name is Louise Broekman. I’m the founder of the Advisory Board Centre and I’m joined here by esteemed colleagues, Sandra Gamble, Chair of the best Practice and Ethics Advisory Board, and Udo Doring the CEO of the Advisory Board Centre and also a director of Advisory+. What we’re going to be doing today is reviewing the third edition release of the ABF 101 Advisory Board Best Practice framework.
Udo Doring:
At this point, I think one of the things that we’re very conscious of in launching the next iteration of the Advisory Board Best Practice Framework is really understanding that this is an ongoing process. And so the work that the Best Practice and Ethics Committee do on an ongoing basis is always look for input from the broader market and always look to try and incorporate that into the conversations. One of the other fundamentals is that this is a very much a principle led framework, so where there is a lack of regulation or stipulation around what must happen, it continues to evolve. And in that principle led space, it’s really important to make sure that there’s that ongoing input as concepts evolve. So you’ll see some of the evolution of a few of those key principles today. I think Louise and Sandra will dive into some of the debates and some of the input that came through. I think part of that also is that they always welcome response and reaction to the conversation as well. So if there’s any questions or comments, please do feel free to play those through as well.
Louise Broekman:
Thanks, Udo. So a bit about the Advisory Board Centre. Collectively as the professional body, our role is to raise the standard of the global advisory board sector and driving value for the individual advisory board professionals. And then in turn, for the organizations that they serve. We operate in over 29 countries with over 650 members, but our key role as the professional body is for research, education, professional development, and advocacy to the market of which the best practice framework is a really important part of our role for the sector.
A few things about the cornerstones to the work that we do, the Certified Chair Executive Program is a program that we run globally in Australia, Singapore, Dubai, London, Paris, Toronto, New York, and we also provide support in building best practice advisory boards and connectivity too with the Global Advisory Board community. So for those of you that are joining us, the part of the broader community, we welcome you to connect them with us at any time. And just a thank you for those that have joined us that are part of the advisory board center community that have joined us today. The state of the market report is also Cornerstone to the sector where we look at the global trends. Today we’re going to be referring to some of those key trends and how that’s translated into the best practice framework. It’s available free on the Advisory Board Centre website to explore the key market trends that we see in the advisory board sector around the world.
Today we’re going to be reviewing the ABF101 Advisory Board Best Practice framework. The first edition was released in 2019, second edition in 2022, and then 2024 is our third edition. It’s available free on the Advisory Board Centre website. The best practice framework is overseen by both the Advisory Board Center community, the Global Research Council, which I head, and then also by the Best Practice and Ethics advisory board. Sandra Gamble is the Chair of the Best Practice and Ethics advisory Board. And Sandra, if I’m able to go to you just for a bit of commentary about the role of the advisory board itself.
Sandra Gamble:
Thanks, Louise, and thanks for the opportunity to join everybody today. It’s been an absolute pleasure to be the Chair of the Best Practice and Ethics Advisory Board. They’re a marvelous group of people, very experienced advisors from a range of different backgrounds, from finance to ESG, to startups to growth businesses, very experienced people, and we’ve had the opportunity to review the best practice framework in the context of some really new and emerging issues and risks potentially for advisors, but also for businesses. And it’s been a really fantastic process that we’ve gone through, getting feedback from members, but also bringing to the table some of our insights and some of the conversations that we’ve had. Our meetings has been fabulous. So I’m really looking forward to seeing how the new framework is put into action by our members.
Louise Broekman:
Thanks, Sandra. Appreciate that. As Sandra mentioned, there’s been a whole review process every two years. We’ll review the framework, so it’s a six month process where the open market are able to provide feedback our members, and then it’s put into context by both the best practice and ethics advisory board and the Global Research Council that are independent of each other. The contributions though and the release of the best practice framework is not seen as necessarily a consensus of everybody’s ideas. And this is really important where there’s always ongoing debate of what good looks like. And so this is not an endorsement by any one individual or group, but it’s really a culmination of everybody’s ideas into really looking at what are the ethical considerations that we need to be looking at for the advisory board sector today through to 2026. And so if we look at the framework itself, it’s free for anybody to download. You can use this QR code to access the new release and information about the updates as well.
So let’s put it into context. The state of the market report was released in 2023, and there were two key mega trends that really are driving the advisory board sector today and driving new growth in the advisory board sector. One is the role of advisory boards supporting governance boards within the role of the governance system. So the ecosystem of governance is now made up of advisory boards, supporting governance boards in making informed decisions. This is a very important role and an evolution in the advisory board sector. The second mega trend is the growth of the stakeholder economy and the usage of advisory boards as a best practice way to be able to harness the stakeholder voice and being able to bring it into decision-making cycles. So with that in reference, there are key market influences that we are seeing that will really impact the best practice discussions over the next two years.
I’ll just go through each of these things. The first one, Sandra, I might call on you for the first one around the emerging motivations. So we’re the shift in motivations for advisory boards. So traditionally the business sector in particular, their key motivations since the time that we started mapping advisory boards in 2016 has been around the motivation to have an advisory board around realizing growth potential and succession planning. Today we’re seeing additional motivations that are really quite different. One is, as I mentioned, the stakeholder engagement being driven by the stakeholder economy organizations and businesses trying to navigate at risk and managing complexity. Now, managing complexity is really new. So normally we talk about advisory boards about navigating what’s next, what organizations using advisory boards today is to let’s navigate the now and this is quite a new effect. And then the other point is, as Udo pointed out, is that regulations are starting to take hold in some parts of the market and it’s driving new advisory board activity. So Sandra, I’ll just go back to you for any commentary that you have around these motivations.
Sandra Gamble:
Thanks, Louise. I come from the energy industry and there’s been a real shift in thinking by energy businesses, especially those that are customer facing. They need to understand more about what their customers want to need, and that’s driven by both their regulation if they’re a network business, and it’s also driven by competition if they’re say a retail business. So advisory boards involving consumers have been a real development recently. Having said that though, there’s been some historical advisory boards over the years, and many of us have felt that they haven’t necessarily reached their full potential in the absence of the best practice framework. So what’s happening now is that businesses are able to use the best practice framework to both get the value that they expect from advisory boards, but also to streamline some of their activity so that the effort that they put into advisory boards is well rewarded. Risk management’s also an important element, and this comes out of some of the royal commissions where boards have been blindsided by risk associated with the activity of their staff and the sensitivity of their customers. And an expert advisory board is an excellent way to identify risks that they would not otherwise have recognized. So there’s a range of drivers and emerging motivations, but all of them about being able to do business better.
Louise Broekman:
Thanks, Sandra. And regulations, when we look at globally, Saudi Arabia have just regulated advisory boards in the university sector, in the aged care sector in Australia is another example, but it’s certainly starting to change with regards to its regulatory environment as well with market utilization, you look at the key drivers and influences here, there certainly is a rise of project advisory boards, and that’s influencing how we view best practice because we’ve got an agile nature of advisory boards where 53% of new advisory boards are now project advisory. So with best practice, we can’t be really prescriptive in the way that we’ve been before. So we’ve seen a loosening in some of the language in the way, especially around the areas of measurement because advisory boards are being used with a different cadence and also for different reasons, the rise of corporatized advisory boards. Anto, I’ll get you in a moment to talk a bit about what you are seeing in the space of corporatized advisory boards and in particular the areas around internal advisory board management and management of information and data, but also the broadening of who’s involved in advisory boards. When we are looking at things like customer advisory boards, they’re no longer providing advice, but they’re providing feedback. So the actual definitions are shifting from being an advisor on advisory board to being an advisory board member who’s a representative of a key stakeholder group. So these are some of the things that we see. Udo, I’ll go to you first with the advisory Plus you are leading the way with regards to best practice implementation in large corporate environments. What are you seeing in this space?
Udo Doring:
I think one of the key evolutions or changes that we’re seeing from the conversation in this space is that a lot of larger organizations are where perhaps they have engaged previously in advisory boards. They’re looking to enhance the level of sophistication around getting valuable people around a table and really trying to drive better outcomes. And that can come in a few different guises. So as you mentioned, the stakeholder economy, that piece is a really powerful piece of engagement that we continue to see. The other is potentially inputting and or driving a particular strategy within a larger governance framework. And I think there’s a lot of corporate entities and governments and universities that are starting to engage with advisory boards to really improve their strategy output and performance overall. What’s been interesting within that is I guess a few elements, not just the selection of the individuals that sit within those advisory boards, but the structure and the work that goes into those advisory boards and those advisory board meetings before they happen and after they happen. So it’s really, I guess increasing the level of sophistication of the meetings and knowing that the meeting isn’t the only part of the advisory board that matters. It’s everything else around it. And I think consistent feedback that we get is where there is really solid proactive and clear preparation for an advisory board meeting. That’s where the larger end of town is getting the return from the process. And I think that’s consistent. We’re really seeing that across the board.
Louise Broekman:
Sandra, you’ve got perspectives too around market utilization around information and data as well.
Sandra Gamble:
With AI, of course we can’t get through this webinar without talking about AI given that it’s such, well, it’s a new thing for most businesses and businesses are trying to navigate through. So the first thing with AI is what information, what data do you have and what are the areas that might be suitable for AI to operate in? And again, the emergence of AI has to be one of the things that’s going to drive advisory boards. And that may be not just in the technology, but also the utilization and application. It’s also an example of where an advisory board is likely to evolve over time. It might be that you are running pilots initially and doing what I call dabbling, which is in professional terms, is testing, and then eventually moving on to developing strategy and then after that, implementing it and evaluating monitoring and governing ai. So certainly the information and data area is an important area for both advisory and the development of governance systems generally.
Louise Broekman:
Thank you. And that’s a nice segue into the market influences around governance systems and the risk profiles of advisory boards. Some advisory boards are riskier than others, and so with the rise of project advisory boards, we’re getting this real specialization as Udo mentioned, into really specific areas of risk but also needing to do a deeper dive. When we look at things like cyber and navigating geopolitical risk, these risk profiles of advisory boards are really shifting and changing in the market. I might move on to the framework itself. So for those of you that are new to the best practice framework, just a bit of a sidestep, some of you may really understand best practice standards. Now, this is not a best practice standard because it’s not a one way to do things. The flexibility of advisory bullets is its strength. And so we don’t have best practice standards.
We have best practice principles to enable it to be flexible to meet the environment that it’s in, whether it’s a startup scale up, whether it’s the business sector or whether they’re corporatized advisory boards. These principles can be applied to make sure that it’s really fit for the environments that it’s in. So there are three pillars. There’s purpose, there’s process, and there’s people around purpose. It’s around having clarity of scope process, it’s having really strong but simple structures and disciplines and measurement of impact. And then lastly, it’s around people. It’s about independence and fit for purpose. Now, without this framework, most organizations, when they think of an advisory board that goes straight to the people, it’s actually the last thing that you look at. You’ll be really clear about what is it that you’re trying to do and what you’re not trying to do, what’s the structure that’s going to really drive the strategy, and then what kind of people do you need around the table to be able to address that purpose?
So we are going to dive into just some of the key changes that have happened in each of these principles, and we’ll start with clarity of scope. Now, what we’ve done with the updates is actually not to make the document bigger or more complex. It’s actually to make it more succinct and simple and really clear around each one of these principles. So that’s really good news for all of us. So the document’s actually getting tighter, which makes the, I think the sector far more effective. So around clarity of scope, the definition is around the advisory board has a clearly articulated purpose and intended impact. And so it’s got really clear boundaries between governance and executive functions. It’s got really understand the expectations of member contribution and the members know where the organization’s actually really trying to drive value. Now the key changes here is about really clearly defining purpose and intended impact mapping of stakeholders and ensuring that advisory board members have really clear terms of engagement. Now, Sandra, the intended impact was a really important part for you in the redefinition of this principle.
Sandra Gamble:
Yeah, that’s right. It’s a bit of a twist on the defined purpose, but intended impact is what impact do we want to have on the business, but also what, what sort of impact do we want to have on stakeholders, whether they be shareholders, customers, the general public, noting that in this sort of more complex world, we have to take into account what sort of impact we’re likely to have and be able to manage that. So this is also fairly tightly bound with one of the other principles which is around measurement, a measurement of impact, but thinking about it from a broad perspective rather than just simply a particular profit outcome or market outcome. I think.
Louise Broekman:
Thanks, Sandra. The other area I just want to highlight here is the mapping of stakeholders. So this is a very important inclusion into the A BF 1 0 1 where sometimes advisory boards, when they’re formed, it’s formed in isolation in a bubble. And so for those of you that are certified chairs on the call today, in the establishment phase of an advisory board, a key activity that could be included in that establishment phase is the overall mapping of all stakeholders to ensure that the advisory board is really deeply considering the whole stakeholder engagement and where it fits into the broader strategy of an organization. The second principle is around structure and discipline. And the definition, again, being really more clearly defined is about clearly outlining the management protocols to establish, manage and review effectiveness. And Udo, I might go to you, this is the first time that in the best practice framework that we’ve actually named internal roles, we’ve always named the advisory board roles, the chair, internal representatives, external representatives. Now we’re actually naming the management function of both the sponsor and the secretariat. Why has this really been an important development from your perspective?
Udo Doring:
I think it touches on the comment I made earlier around the preparation, making the advisory board meetings, but also just the advisory board more impactful. One of the things that we see consistently is having absolute clarity about what the advisory board is there to speak about. What is the content, what are we dealing with in the meeting? And then equally as important, what are we not dealing with? And they’re really important elements to get well-established upfront to provide everyone clarity. And what we find is where there is a clear sponsor of the advisory board identified within the organization and a clear secretariat or advisory board manager declared and identified, it supports that clarity and the scoping and the process. And it might be helpful if I go a little bit further into defining both of those roles. So the sponsor of an advisory board is more often than not the internal representative that is the champion of the advisory board.
So they are the senior executive or director that is responsible for ultimately the decision-making and or the custodian of the advisory board within the organization. And the reason why this is important is where an advisory board is, and apologies for the crude reference, but where an advisory board is an orphan within an organization, more often than not, you’ll see it be ineffectual, you’ll see it drift or you won’t see real impact and an output come from the advisory board where there is a strong sponsor. It is a consistent in terms of that output and delivery because it is clearly identified as a champion. Now we see really high level and high profile examples of this, but it is so consistent right through the spectrum of organizations that engage with advisory boards. So the sponsor is a really important piece. The secretariat is the administrative function of an advisory board.
It’s important in every advisory board, but as the size of the organization and the complexity of the organization increases, so too does that coordination of the advisory board. So that role is really important to make sure that the trains run on time, that there is preparation, that the agenda is sorted, that there is output post meeting. So it’s not necessarily a functional role in the meeting. It can be, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be, but it’s the person that helps with the processing of the mechanics of the advisory board. So really interesting roles and I would suggest equally as important, especially as you get into more complicated situations. Yeah,
Louise Broekman:
It sounds like a simple thing, but it’s so important, isn’t it, to the role Sandra, the management disciplines around data and information. This is not only about ai, but it’s the information and data protocols of between the advisory board and the organization. But it’s important to get that right upfront.
Sandra Gamble:
Oh yeah, especially when advisory boards are advising governance boards, they need to be very clear about how they’ve come their decision. They need to be really transparent about that, what they’ve taken into account, the options they’ve considered, the options they’ve putting forward and why that is the case. Because governance boards have important duties and those duties go to due care and diligence. And if they are to rely on the work of an advisory board, they really need to be able to understand where that advice has come from so that they can exercise those duties properly.
Louise Broekman:
Thank you. And the last areas around member transparency on how their input is used and how they’re representative, we hear case studies of advisory board members, road testing ideas, but then within the organization it’s actually been represented that they’ve actually endorsed a particular strategy inside organizations. And so this is a very important area with doing the right thing with regards to the outputs of an advisory board and how advisors or advisory board members, their information is actually being used. If we go to the third principle, which is around measurement, the advisory board is measured on an ongoing basis for the intended impact and organizational alignment. What’s really interesting is what’s stayed true in the a ABF 101. Not everything has changed, but it’s about for advisory board members to make sure that they absolutely stay focused and members can articulate and validate where they’re adding value. The changes that we have in this part of the framework is the shift from measuring performance through to impact and communications as stakeholders, but also because of project advisory boards, it’s changed the prescriptive nature that we normally would in the past have talked about having annual impact measurement to a periodical because project advisory boards could be a three month advisory board, so it doesn’t make sense to have an annual review. Sandra, have you got any comments on that one?
Sandra Gamble:
Yeah, and as I said earlier, this really links with what your intended impact is. So it’s about going back and thinking about what the intended impacts and has it been achieved. The other thing I’d say about this is that actually sometimes quite difficult to isolate the impact of an advisory board because the impact often depends on other things, the ability of the organization to execute. I know we talked about that later. So what I would suggest here is a fairly pragmatic approach rather than trying to do anything too fancy to try and isolate the specific contribution that an advisory board makes. So there’s a little bit of innovation that needs to take place for every board to do this. Well,
Louise Broekman:
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Let’s look at independence. The one that’s the hot potato in the principles. So the definition around this is the advisory board has an independent mindset with openness, curiosity, and understanding and establishing a point of view. Now, the big change is just one word, so it’s moved from independence into an independent mindset. It’s also talking about having a declaration of interest or declaration of any potential bias as well as having independent assessments. So Sandra, I’ll go to you first and then Udo, I’ll get your input on this. Independence to an independent mindset. It creates a lot of debate.
Sandra Gamble:
It does for me. It’s a really positive change because independence is not absolute, but what an independent mindset is about is an individual advisor being conscious that their independence is important and they need to actively assess themselves as to whether they are truly independent or not. Of course, they can make their declarations both in terms of their pecuniary interests or other types of interests that is likely to persuade them or influence them somehow, and any potential bias potentially views that they’ve had before. That may not mean they come to the party with an open mind, but there’s a whole range of other potential areas where independence could be compromised. Have they done work for the business before? Were they hold shares and a competitor? A whole range of sometimes big and sometimes subtle influences. And I think this is where we are placing a bit of onus on the advisory industry itself to have that independence mindset and to be always actively conscious of what they’re bringing to the table in terms of having an open mind, being able to consider alternative views, being able to innovate, being able to move away from the status quo, being able to bring their best expert selves to the table.
So that’s what I think independent mindset means rather than just simply a yes or a no, a independent.
Louise Broekman:
It’s not quite that simple, is it?
Sandra Gamble:
It isn’t simple, and it also isn’t static either. So sometimes people have had yield shares and no longer do. Some people have worked in a company and they haven’t worked in the company for 10 years, some people haven’t worked in a company for 10 days. That’s a very different thing. And so I think the trust that businesses put in advisory boards is so important that we’ve all got to be on the awareness of what might influence us and what might change our ability to be open and curious and understand the points of view as others and accept those points of view.
Louise Broekman:
Udo, it’s not straightforward though, is it? In corporate environments you might have an internal advisory board chair. So what’s your view around the independent mindset?
Udo Doring:
Yeah, I think the really important distinction and evolution of the framework, because exactly what Sandra just said, there will be vested interest in some of these situations that is relatively unavoidable. So how do we actually frame the advice and the role that we’re playing in specific situations? And so if I work for a corporate and I have been tasked with chairing and advisory board, well by the very nature of the fact that I am employed by the organization, I’m not independent. So how do I walk into that room and make sure that I am not bringing all of my bias and my agendas to this table, and how do I make sure that I’m trying to actually get a result for the advisory board and for the organization? And the same thing goes for many different iterations of advisory boards in small and scaling organizations.
So I think it’s a really interesting evolution of the terminology. I think it’s really important, and I also think it can be seen as a bit of an academic exercise, but I think that’s good. We should wrestle with these concepts because where there is the absence of black and white, whereas the absence of codification of this, we need to be thinking about these things because it’s important as advisory board professionals that we have an opinion and that we’re conscious of the question, conscious of the concept. So I think it’s a really positive piece and encourage anyone that is actively engaged in the advisory board space to wrestle with it. It’s good as both Louise and Sandra have said, it can lead to some relatively robust conversations as well that we’ve seen in practice. And that’s terrific. It should. That’s really the intent of this as well.
Louise Broekman:
Thank you. It goes to the core of advisory boards. You don’t need to agree. Consensus can be a killer, so it just makes us stronger. Thank you for that. Fit for purpose is the last principle where the advisory board members are profiled and selected by the organization to fulfill the scope and meet the objectives in terms of expertise, diversity and personal attributes. And this really goes to the core of what this principle has always been about, about the goal orientation for purposeful conversations. And the objective is to the objective fit, including expertise, diversity and personal attributes, alignment with the culture, but personal responsibility to maintain currency. So can I just talk about this personal responsibility to maintain currency? This has always been in our code of ethics for the advisory board center, community community. It’s now been transferred into the best practice framework about the currency of being current and how the ephemeral nature of expertise or being an expert shifts from moving into expertise constantly changing. Sandra, this was an important one for you too about the currency of being current.
Sandra Gamble:
The responsibility to maintain currency I think increases over time with urgency, with the amount of social change that’s happening, the amount of economic change and possibly the technological change that our ability to be able to give reliable advice depends on our ability to have maintained knowledge that’s current. I think we can less rely on experience, although experience is extremely useful, but we can’t necessarily rely on experience if it’s based on outdated thinking, outdated technology, outdated social structures. So this is where we go in saying we’re an expert. If these advisory boards might last 18 months, three years, a lot can happen in that time. Are we still the current expert that we went in with? I would say in many cases we need to keep our learning up to date to make sure that we remain fit for purpose.
Louise Broekman:
The best practice framework, it covers off these principles that are applicable for advisory boards, committees and councils, reference groups and project teams. All of them are advisory boards in nature because there are problem solving, not a decision making model. So I really encourage you to download the latest edition. Let’s look at the implications just from a practical point of view if we put into what these changes mean. So an advisory board, we think traditionally around the internal stakeholders at the advisory board, the external representatives as well, the advisory board members and the chair. Now we are looking at the whole framework for advisory boards to include the role of the sponsor and the secretariat. Now what the updates and the best practice framework talk about how is the advisory board being informed and the preparation of the advisory board and what happens as an outcome of the advisory board, and where does that information go to amplify the impact of the advisory board.
So normally we talk about around the board, now we’re talking about what’s surrounding the board, the advisory board. Now when we look at the results of an advisory board where it goes out into the organization, it then does a loop back into feeding back into the advisory board as well. So this management function is an important aspect of bringing all of that together, and that’s what we call the golden triangle, the role of the chair, the sponsor, and the secretariat working together. Now, this is about really maximizing the value for the organization about how those three roles really work together. And this is a key difference in the third edition of the best practice framework. The other part of this is around the governance system about having informed leadership. So what is the link between stakeholder engagement and then the internal organization? So your different stakeholder groups, which are internal representatives, the business ecosystem institutions, but also social representation.
So when an organization is looking to build an advisory board, which part of the stakeholder economy are they actually drawing into the organization? And which part of the organization is it at the governance board? Is it at the executive level or is it at a project level? And so this is where the governance system actually starts to practically work. Udo, I’ll just go to you. You’ve been doing a lot of work in the corporate environment around stakeholders informing internal organizations. This latest edition really addresses this piece. Where do you see that being an important part of the corporatized advisory board space?
Udo Doring:
I think it’s crucial. So it forms such a significant part of corporatized advisory boards. Increasingly, you’ve got large organizations that are having to engage with and or represent or make decisions around social issues and or commercial decisions that will have an impact on the ecosystem. So when we talk about stakeholders, we’re talking about suppliers, we’re talking about staff members, we’re talking about customers, we’re talking about social groups and community. And because of that, what happens in one particular market or in one boardroom may not be representative of a broader stakeholder piece. And then you’ve also got the complication of intercultural complications and jurisdictional complications, especially when it comes to social issues and norms. So I think this is something that we are going to see more and more of. And it is really important and it’s really important to firstly gain the feedback and engagement, but it’s also really important to show or demonstrate a meaningful way of having that conversation as well. So a contact us form isn’t going to cut it anymore. And that’s a really important element to what we hear organizations talk about to say, we can’t just pay lip service to these stakeholders. It’s meaningful, it’s real. And so this very much is a way to inform decision-making. It doesn’t take the decision making away from the organization, but hopefully it contextualizes and supports better decision-making before there can potentially be some quite high profile and public missteps by organizations. So at least it better informs decision making and decision makers within the organization.
Louise Broekman:
The state of the market report in 2023 talked about the confidence test, and there are three elements to the confidence test. And this is around research completed around what does a receiver need to have so that they’re confident in making a different decision. So first of all, they need to be confident in the advisor and the intent of the advisor. They need to be confident in the information that they’ve got in front of them. But then most importantly, they’ve got to be confident in their own ability to be able to execute based on the decision that’s being made. Now, based on the third edition of the best practice framework, we’ve actually been able to now see that the confidence for decision makers is actually amplified when we shift those three considerations into an equation. And that equation is the decision maker confidence actually equals the quality of the information and the quality of the advice multiplied by their ability to be able to execute.
And this is where we amplify impact in the results of an advisory board. When we really think about these three things, so many people sitting on advisory board will think about, this is just the advice, but there’s so many other things to be able to consider about the confidence of decision making. And so the new additions of the third edition of the ABF 1 0 1 really reinforces the importance of this equation. So we’ve, I guess, ended key components to this. There are no questions as yet or any comments in the chat, so I’ll just give it a moment if anyone does have a question or a comment to make to the panel. While we’re waiting for that, we might just do a wrap up, Sandra, for the next two years for, and I’m going to put you on the spot here. Any tips for advisory board professionals in the implementation of best practice and these new considerations for best practice?
Sandra Gamble:
Well, what I would say is, have we missed anything? So over the next two years, we would love feedback from the membership from advisors about what are the new things that we should be taking into account? Have we missed anything? Because there’ll be another review in two years. So I think you have always made the point that we need to keep this fresh, and we’ve done our best so far to take into account some of the challenges that we see, but certainly if the advisory community see that we’ve missed anything or that we need to consider more, we’ve got plenty of time now to take into consideration next time. So we’d love some feedback.
Louise Broekman:
Great. Thank you. Some good debates coming ahead. Thanks, Sandra. Udo, any tips with regards to considerations from these updates?
Udo Doring:
I think wrestling with them is probably the starting point for me. I think it’s theoretical until it becomes a practical piece that someone is actually implementing. And I think that’s where the wrestle and the struggle comes into play. And I think it’s just really healthy to do that. So I’d encourage anyone that is engaging with advisory boards, with committee structures to really reference the framework and think about the concepts and the principles and see how they apply and where your opinion lands as you play through the process. And I think it’s a really rich process to go through and conversation to have with internal members and also external members of advisory board. So I think that’s a really important part. And then I absolutely endorse what Sandra said is what’s not there because sometimes it’s in that wrestle, it’s in that struggle, it’s in that conversation dialogue that you find that something perhaps isn’t addressed or addressed in a way that perhaps isn’t going to be fit for purpose as the advisory board landscape continues to evolve. So yeah, I think engage, have conversations and really, really wrestle with it. And we’ve got no shortage of external stimulus that will be brought into play. And we’ve talked about artificial intelligence, that digital transformation, geopolitical challenges, all of those things are overlays into what advisory boards are dealing with and will continue to deal with. And because of that, it is really important that they are fit for purpose and then that continues to evolve.
Louise Broekman:
Thanks Udo. Thank you both for a fantastic conversation. Sandra, thank you for your leadership for the best practice and ethics advisory board and really navigating through to the third edition. I really appreciate that.
Sandra Gamble:
My absolute pleasure. I wouldn’t do it unless I believed in it.
Louise Broekman:
Udo, thank you for the leadership of the Advisory Board Center and Advisory+ and keep on doing good work in the corporate space. And thank you everyone for attending today. If anyone has any questions, any commentary, please connect in with us. I’m very happy to have the conversation with you in the application of best practice.
