Quotes from Bob Garratt

It is why boards were invented, to add sufficiently diverse wisdom to counter a single leader.

That is why effective organizations have monthly board meetings.

Executives are there in part to add diversity to board debate through their detailed operational experience. They are not there to act as ciphers of the chief executive.

Directors' duties are both to work within the meaning and spirit of the laws and to behave in an ethical manner to their clients.

The chairman must take the lead responsibility for the board development processes.

Every director needs an annual personal development plan agreed with the chairman.

boards must now be much clearer about their competencies, values and ethics

board as a whole, there is a particular need to learn how to be comfortable with being constructively critical

about balancing capitalism with moral sentiment, especially over the distribution and use of profits for the good of mankind.

The rule of thumb at present seems to be that directors must not serve more than a total of nine years, three times a three-year service contract.

A civil society cannot exist without effective corporate governance to best deploy its economic and social capital.

effective corporate governance built on the values of accountability, honesty and transparency

It is this short-termism, lack of ownership vision, selfishness and greed that is undermining our capitalist system.

Strategic thinking is the director's role. Planning is an exclusively executive role.

trying to avoid here is the rush into planning projects and budgets at the expense of strategic thought

the wider consequences of a strategic decision needs destructive testing, especially by the board.

profit is the by-product of a successful enterprise not its raison d'être.

each director could access a visual picture of the figures, which they could then manipulate through 'what if' questioning.

interactive graphic systems, instead of just lists of numbers, should greatly enhance the quality of boardroom debates.

Customers have 'moments of truth'11 with an enterprise

test is: can the key trends be shown to the board on no more than two sides of A4 paper?

Processes without intelligent and rigorous scrutiny are not enough.

learning audit – on what could be done more, what could be done less, and what is satisfactory.

The board should include a balance … such that no individual or small group of individuals can dominate the board's decision-making.