In the past few weeks, we have seen much turbulence in reflection of OpenAI. The whole Brazilian/Mexican soap opera shows the danger of how a lousy board decision can disrupt a whole company.
The whole story shows there is always more money than talent if we discuss technology!
The most important fact is that most companies are in different shoes than OpenAI because they are not hitting the wall with a wrong decision - and that's why they are slowly dying.
If we go back to the ultimate goal of why companies have boards, it is like the Senate in ancient times.
And that's the point where we got off the road!
In an ideal company, it should work like the consultation in the Teal concept of Frederic Laloux
The typical problem with most Board operation, people making decision on the company life, who not working with the Day-to-day problems, and risks what the company facing. They are making decisions for the company on what the company should execute - but without taking the responsibility on the wrong decisions.
There is a significant disconnect between the Boards and the employees, like you try to give guidance from a plane which flying at 30.000 feet high, to the people who is walking on the street.
They expect everything changing like the plane flight, but in reality the colleagues are walking on their foots.
If something goes wrong, they are not responsible - only when thing goes wrong such as at OpenAI.
It is always easy to frame problems, but I also want to give solution here.
In an ideal system the Board only give advise with their wisdom. Ideally they are working in cross-industry with various background, so they can give different viewpoints to the strategy what the executives of the company provides.
If there is a mistake in the execution, then there is no fingerpointing between the executives and the management, I did this because the management expected.
Ideal companies must have processes which safeguard their operation, and they protected not because they have the board.
There must be indicators which shows the analytics of the company, and predict the consequences of the decisions, and decisions can be made on data, not on management company predictions which not reflect the company size, and business model.
And last but not least: If a company hire people for change, let them do change, and empower them with the right resources - without empowerment the trust will disappear, like the CEO change did at OpenAI.