Our CEO @iain massey (aka The Board Bloke®) spent a pleasant and fruitful day at the annual WA Forum of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD).
Here’s his report:
First, if you are wondering how this might be relevant to your SME or non-profit, let’s be clear. The governance, strategy and risk challenges for larger businesses are quantitatively bigger, but not qualitatively different, from the ones you need to square up to as an SME owner or NFP director.
Thanks, then, to the AICD crew for lining up a thought-provoking day, seasoned with many opportunities to renew old connections and form new ones.
Three themes dominated the discussion: psychosocial workplace safety, ESG reporting, and AI.
Psychosocial safety is about how people feel in the workplace, and if you are a PCBU you need to get across this. Worksafe will treat hazards like bullying, harassment and discrimination just like hazardous heights or machinery. You need to identify, evaluate and manage the risk, and you need to prove you are doing so. We do not want to harm people at work, that’s reason enough in itself; but there’s a bonus: psychologically safe workplaces are more productive, more innovative, and have less absenteeism and turnover.
ESG reporting is, by common consent, the latest in a string of acronyms that seek to make organisations accountable for the broader consequences of their choices. Get used to it. It’s not as hard as you might think, and you start by starting. Thanks to @kellie benda for a down-to-earth treatment of this topic.
And OK, “AI” is perhaps an overblown name for some clever algorithms. Do not let that distract you. I think what has happened since November (yes, that recently) is like a phase change. You keep applying energy to that rather undramatic block of ice, and suddenly it’s liquid and it’s flowing everywhere. Like railways or electricity (or the internet), it’s going to change everything. You might as well get yourself in a position to make wise choices about it.
Thanks @sandalford wines for a lovely glass of good cheer, and thanks to all the people I had such fascinating conversations with.