Creating a winning board

Purpose – To share the key findings of continuing research programs into successful and unsuccessful approaches to managing change, business development, competing and winning. Design/methodology/approach – The underpinning research compares approaches adopted with outcomes achieved to identify critical success factors for key corporate activities such as winning business, building relationships, managing change and creating and exploiting know‐how. Findings – The directors and boards of successful and unsuccessful companies behave in very different ways. Corporate performance depends primarily upon what boards actually do and how their members behave. Winning boards are distinguished by the attitudes and conduct of their members and the approaches they adopt. Corporate governance arrangements are often a symptom and consequence rather than a cause of board effectiveness. Practical implications – The focus, priorities and preoccupations of many directors and boards need to change if they are to add more value to creating the future. Originality/value – Provides an overview of the main differences between the behaviors of directors and boards of successful and unsuccessful companies.