Six years ago, around 2019, while facilitating a board retreat for a regional insurance player, I posed a simple question to the directors: “How do you know when the board doing a good job?” One director replied, “We hold quarterly meetings on time.” Another director chimed in, “Our audit reports are clean.” And then another, “We have more than 80% meeting attendance rate.” They thought they had nailed it. I thought they were joking. They weren’t.

And that’s the problem.

Most board evaluations are superficial at best and performative at worst. They focus on compliance tick-boxes attendance, timely submissions, and committee structure. What they miss is the board’s actual impact on business outcomes. Governance has become a theatre. Everyone plays their part, and no one checks if the script is working. Do you have a board scorecard? Many boards do not! Do you have a board’s risk appetite? The answer is usually no! How do you drive a car with a revving but no dashboard to tell you the speed at which you are driving? How do you have a car without breaking system? 

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"Cybersecurity isn't just a tech issue. It's a governance one. And when it blows up, the accountability trail shouldn’t start with, “I thought..” It should start with, “I owned this.”

In 2022, a major government-owned pension fund suffered a cyberattack. The kind that makes you sweat in places you didn’t know had pores.

It started with a routine system upgrade outsourced to a vendor with a shiny brochure and even shinier promises. The IT manager approved it. The head of procurement signed off. No one involved had asked when the last penetration test was done. Or how user access would be monitored post-upgrade. A week later, the attackers walked in through an open port like burglars through an unlocked door accessed over 20,000 contributor records, including national ID data, salary histories, and nominee information. Read more >>

A manufacturing firm, state-owned, proudly displayed its latest glossy annual report. Clean audit. Good governance rating. Five-year plan approved. But hidden behind the boardroom smiles was a ticking bomb. For three straight quarters, input prices were rising, and the plant’s equipment sourced on cheap long-term supplier credit was showing signs of wear. But no one challenged management’s rose-tinted projections. Risk reports came in late. Strategy reviews were rehearsed.

Then one morning, the firm’s largest supplier invoked a termination clause buried in fine print. Overnight, production stopped. The board scrambled. Legal was called in. A crisis team was set up. And the chair asked the question no one wanted to answer: “How did we miss this?” Read more >>

Your workplace may be broken. It’s time to fix it.

Most organizations struggle with the same problems high turnover, low productivity, disengaged employees, and leadership that feels stuck. You think the issue is strategy, hiring, or motivation. It’s not.

The real problem is your culture.

Introducing the Culture Mastery Series by Mr Strategy, the author of “7Tools to Get to the Board and Add Value”, and “Execution is the Strategy” Newsletter series on LinkedIn.

This is not another leadership seminar. It is a culture transformation program designed for CEOs, HR leaders, managers, and employees who are ready to fix what is broken and build a workplace where results matter.

No theories. No generic advice. Only proven frameworks, practical solutions, and tools you can apply immediately. Read more >>

This thought-provoking book offers an incisive examination of corporate governance from both a historical and contemporary point of view…I highly recommend it for your useful and sustainable leadership benefit” – Michael Mugabi, Former President, Institute of Corporate Governance of Uganda.