This week I was lucky enough to be invited to the IoD (Institute of Directors) annual convention, held at the stunning Royal Albert Hall. Last time I was at this venue I went to see The Cranberries in concert, so you can imagine I haven’t been there for a while!
This year, as always, boasted an impressive line up of speakers including some big names: David Milliband, Richard Scudamore – Chief Exec of the Premier League, Lord Mandleson, Lord Lawson and Sir Ranulph Fiennes.
I definitely came away with some great insights from the day though and I always feel invigorated and ready to take on the business world after events like these (bring it on – somebody high 5 me!!).
I was particularly inspired by many of the comments from the Entrepreneur and Fashion Designer Anya Hindmarch, that ring true with what we try to achieve at Scout for ourselves and our Clients. She said that success to business is about finding and retaining good talent. Where you can’t do something brilliantly yourself, admit this and bring in outside experts. She also went on to say that to succeed you must push the boundaries and that fortune favours the brave. Try to inspire the next generation as well by talking to them about your experiences and so they can in turn learn from them.
An extremely useful panel debate for me was ‘The Future of the Board’. Being a board member myself and having to manage the expectations of a board, I was keen to know what this panel had to conclude: The point of a board is to define and influence company culture, strategy and performance, to fashion the business of tomorrow and to steer & supervise. whois . You also need to be armed with high quality information to be able to make smarter decisions. Plus consistent engagement and long term commitment from each board member is vital to its success.
All sounds pretty straight forward really but amazing how many companies don’t get the fundamentals correct and wonder why they aren’t functioning properly. Memo to us!
