Boardroom Agility: A Strategic Advantage
Is Your Board Agile Enough for Today’s World?
In today’s volatile environment a board’s ability to adapt may be just as important as its ability to oversee. While most governance systems are designed for consistency and control, what many organizations now need is agility—the ability to pivot quickly, engage dynamically, and learn as they go.
Agile governance isn’t about abandoning structure. It’s about making the structure work for the board’s strategic purpose, not against it. It’s about shifting how boards operate—so they’re better equipped to spot emerging risks and opportunities, and to act in ways that create long-term value.
Why Agility is Important
Turbulence can significantly reduce the certainty of predictions and the success of strategic moves.
Executives and boards need more dynamic capabilities to skillfully guide and govern the long-term value creation of organizations in uncertain and turbulent times.
In a 2019 article titled ‘Why Giants Stumble’, the authors identified factors that create corporate failures: failed innovation or repositioning; overinvesting in the core business; risky diversification; outsized acquisition; failed compliance, poor financial risk controls, or efficiency problems.
“Most stumbles resulted from difficulties in adapting to change and “exploring” for new revenues.”
Two prominent mistakes were identified by the research.
Top decision makers and organizational capabilities are often poorly matched to the company’s strategic challenge.
Top decision makers succumb to decision-making biases that blind them to the major risks they assume.
Most stumbling CEOs and their organizations lacked the capabilities to deal with the challenges that were either thrust upon them or that they freely took on.
The authors concluded that “The odds of success rise with the combination of a CEO with strong qualifications to meet the specific challenges involved, a senior team with complementary strengths, and a board independent and knowledgeable enough to catch mistakes.”
Let’s look at how an agile board could improve the odds of meeting the challenge.
What Does an Agile Board Look Like?
An agile board knows when to double down and when to reassess. It adjusts how it spends time, what information it seeks, and how it engages with management based on the situation at hand.
According to 2024 research (1), agile boards tend to exhibit three core capabilities:
Sensing: Actively developing new insights into the company’s internal and/or external environment, and assessing their impact on risk and opportunity.
Pivoting: Supporting bold moves when necessary, including piloting new strategies or shifting priorities in response to analysis and external change.
Aligning: Enabling capabilities for the transformation and monitoring the execution of the transformation.
This means that for boards to be value-adding, they should develop their own independent and possibly contrarian views on current challenges and opportunities. Boards should also guide and support management in framing and testing initiatives and strategic shifts, and help them seize opportunities more quickly.
But improved innovation can have a negative economic impact if not supported with structure and support. To be successful, sensing and pivoting needs aligning – where boards ensure the corporate and board capabilities & culture support adaptability and transformation.
What about leadership behaviours and mindset? An agile board exhibits comfort with ambiguity, a willingness to explore alternatives, and an openness to dissent. They create space for deeper discussions—rather than rushing to resolution.
Why Traditional Governance Holds Boards Back
Inflexible governance shows up when boards stick too tightly to predefined plans. When management holds back from surfacing emerging issues. When boards want perfect information before making a decision.
Rigid agendas
High volume / low insight board reports
Delayed decisions in fast-moving situations
These are symptoms of governance that hasn’t evolved with the pace of the world around it.
Over time, this erodes the board’s ability to contribute real value.
Practical Ways to Support Board Agility
Agile governance can be built—deliberately. Here are a few ways boards and executives can start:
Prioritize Learning: Promote director development on adaptive mindsets, complex business issues and emerging industry topics.
Rethink Agendas: Allocate time for deep dives, external insights, and forward-looking topics—and lighten time spent on basic operational updates.
Refine Board Reporting: Shift from surface-level information to insights that help the board focus on what matters.
Adjust Board Mandates: Remove low-value duties. Add expectations around agility—such as revisiting assumptions, making space for dissent, and proactively scanning for risk and opportunity.
Executives, directors and governance professionals all share responsibility for fostering an environment that supports curiosity, diverse viewpoints, responsiveness, and informed risk-taking.
If your boardroom conversations could be more valuable, or your leaders are struggling to keep pace with change, ask: what’s holding us back? And more importantly—what could we adjust to move forward with more confidence?
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(1) “Dynamic board capabilities: Developing board practices that impact corporate renewal and performance”, Engstam, Forzelius, Magnusson, Torre & Van der Heyden (2024), Journal of Risk Management in Financial Institutions.