Disruption can be very traumatic in an organisation, and to deal with this, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, founder and chairman, Coronation Capital Nigeria, has outlined three vital skills for the age of disruption.
The tools include grounded optimism, learning agility and resilience. “As a result of trauma, your ability to think and plan may be impaired and you default to more mammalian or reptilian behaviour, flight, run or fight without thinking through your response,” Aig-Imoukhuede said.
Aig-Imoukhuede spoke on the topic, ‘Navigating Business Model Disruptions in 2020 and beyond,’ at the 2020 first quarterly meeting of the Women Corporate Directors (WCD).
WCD is a global organisation, started in the United State and it is a body of women who are serving in some of the largest corporate boards. It empowers those women to be more effective on the board they operate.
The drivers of disruption as profiled by Aig-Imoukhuede are technology, government policy, disease/pandemics, climate change, international relations, talent, and terrorism.
Speaking with BusinessDay immediately after the session, he said, “I think that women are very well placed if not better placed than men to bring those tools to a boardroom”.
Bisi Lamikanra, co-chair, WCD Nigeria, explained that the forum focused on disruption because “we live in a very volatile operating environment and there is a lot of disruption. The topic focused on how we as board members operate within a very disruptive arena”.
There are more people can do as board members to influence outcomes with greater understanding, she said.
“One specific way is when you have a board and the dynamics of the board is not productive as it should be, one of the things the speaker said was that maybe it needs a professional who is almost like a therapist, who can help the board build the culture and dynamics that ensures that the board is able to be extremely productive,” she said.
According to Myma Belo-Osagie, of counsel, Udo Udoma & Belo Osagie, the board needs to be prepared and needs to get itself into the mode where all its board members are able to think at the same level of rationality rather than becoming instinctive despondence to problems.
“That was what Aig-Imoukhuede discussed on and we find incredibly useful and I think it is something we recommend all board to think about to think about on an ongoing basis,” she said.
Hamda Amba, managing director/CEO, FSDH, who was one of the participants, said, the programme was so pertinent, and so relevant, especially to the industry.
“I think it is something we need to take into account and just try and understand that whatever we are doing when there is disruption, we cannot pretend it is not happening. It is just to see how to deal with it for the benefit of our organisation and the society at large,” Amba said.
Also commenting, Bola Adesola, managing director/CEO, Standard Chartered Bank, said, “It was very insightful, very informative. It is about a learning process and learning new way of looking at board dynamics. So it was an excellent session”.
