Broader Shoulders for 2010

Happy New Year! Are you feeling a sense of relief? Of how better it might be now that we're seeing 2009 in the rearview mirror?

If the economy can rebound, perhaps 2010 won't be the 'Byrom-esque' year for board members that 2009 was (see my blog post of Dec. 31). But there has been so much damage done to investors from boards' faulty risk oversight that one should not expect this coming year to be a cakewalk for directors. Institutional investors will press forward with their incursions into the boardroom — say on pay and proxy access petitions — and politicians will certainly support such drives with enabling legislation. Global competition will not lighten up. Nor will the need lessen to develop and recruit the best talent available, from the corner office on down.

So, what will it take to be a director in 2010?

I am reminded of something my close colleague Jeffrey Sonnenfeld once shared with an audience of CEOs and directors. Jeff runs the Yale CEO Leadership Summit, a distinctive convocation of top leaders from business, government, not-for-profit, and academia. (If you have the good fortune to be invited to this semiannual gathering, do attend.) At one summit, when the troubles being wrestled with seemed too imposing, even to all the hard-charging execs in the room, Jeff reminded us of an old Jewish saying:

"I ask not for a lighter burden; I ask for broader shoulders."

Directors' burdens are not going to get any lighter in 2010, so don't pray for that. It will still take courage to be on a board and to accept a board invitation. Pray that you have the broader shoulders to bear this vital duty.

Goodbye to All That

Glub . . . glub . . . glub. At the very start of 2009, in my editor's note in the January e-Briefing newsletter, I predicted that the year ahead would be "Byrom-esque." That's a phrase I made up, drawing from an observation put forward by one of the grand corporate statesman of the 1960s and '70s, Fletcher Byrom (pictured), who said: "The best motivated person is a 5-foot 10-inch nonswimmer in 6 feet of water."

That's how I saw 2009 for corporate directors — that the crisis of credit, markets, leadership, and confidence would make board members feels like Byrom's splashing-like-mad nonswimmers in a 6-feet-of-water boardroom — i.e., in (slightly or utterly) over their heads.

That was a pretty good call. Many board members slipped below the surface, never making it through the year. We saw that at Bank of America, Citigroup, AIG, GM, and other troubled entities. When the markets hit their lows in March, it sure looked like lots of bodies were going to be pulled from the water.

That didn't happen, thankfully. In an ocean of troubles, directors played a vital role in helping keep their managements from going under. This fulfilled the second part of Byrom's aphorism: "If you're doing as well as you should, everyone's head ought to be a little under water all the time. People perform best under conditions of moderate tension."

Well, 2009 was a time of more than moderate tension. As we close out the year, let's recognize the survival instincts and crisis-inspired leadership abilities of those directors who made it through this Byrom-esque year.

Sadly, Fletch himself never made it through the year. This grand business leader of the old school — a CEO who led a major industrial corporation (Koppers Co.), served as a powerful presence on the boards of several Fortune 500 companies, moved comfortably between the business world and service to government, science, academia, and philanthropy, and operated as an all-around strategic adviser on the world stage — died in July at the age of 91. I got to know him a bit when I published a major article by him — a classic commentary on succession planning titled "A Message to My Successor" — in 1999.

So, goodbye to Fletch . . . and goodbye to all that splish-splashing of 2009. Can we rest our bobbing arms a bit now?

Heroes Are All Around Us

Veterans Day 2009. Memories stir of my service with the U.S. Navy. I am proud to have worn the uniform and to have given four years of my life to my country while the Vietnam War raged in the late 1960s and early '70s.

A few years ago my friend Bob Dilenschneider wrote a book titled A Time for Heroes, an exploration of the nature of heroism. Here is a passage:

"Some people define heroes as those who are willing to forfeit their lives for others. Like legal scholars who interpret the Constitution in a narrow way, these people might be considered strict constructionists: no sacrifice, no heroism.

"Myself, I'm a loose constructionist, if I may use that term. I believe in all manner of heroes.

"There are those who spend a lifetime in pursuit of a grand vision. Think of Nelson Mandela, imprisoned for 27 years before he triumphed over apartheid and became president of South Africa.

"Some heroes are intellectual pioneers whose ideas open up new territories of thought. Charles Darwin, Isaiah Berlin, and Sigmund Freud are examples.

"Others alert us to problems in our midst, like Rachel Carson, whose book Silent Spring warned of the dangers of pesticides.

"Some heroes motivate people to aim higher, perhaps to create a more equitable society or to actualize their own abilities.

"All of them have courage — the courage to dare, the courage to fail, the courage to persist."

Well stated, Bob. Count me as a loose constructionist, too. I believe that Corporate America's boardrooms are filled with heroes.

These are men and women who, largely out of public view, are attacking problems that are life-threatening to the enterprises that they are dedicated to protecting and preserving. Especially this past year, with the debilitating volleys that the Great Recession has hit boards with, there must be a legion of heroes taking their seats — hot seats — in boardrooms across the land, summoning up the courage to persist and prevail.

This is a good day to remember those who have worn the uniform of our country's military forces. And it's a good day to appreciate those who are showing courage in all its stripes, including those fiduciaries we call board directors.