Playing games. Political awareness, boardroom lessons, theory.

Ultimately, you might not play office politics, but office politics will play you. Keep your head on a swivel; pay close attention to the political maneuvering that goes on around you. You don’t have to play the game to be situationally aware.  And that situational awareness might just save you from an ambush one day.

As CEO, I wanted the freedom to manage and operate without interference from the board. So when the board did not show interest in the day-to-day, it initially served my agenda. There truly are dangers in having board directors overly involved in management business, especially if they do not understand the more subtle nuances of operations and can inadvertently undermine the credibility the management team has in their leaders.

I also found a downside to this. When presenting to the board on key initiatives, the CFO and I needed the directors to understand enough about the business to engage in constructive discussions. We wanted to be asked challenging questions; we hoped to learn from the expertise of the board within the context of the company, as well as relevant industry trends and developments. Just counting on the directors listening to our presentation and reading the brief we had put into the board book was rarely enough.

“It is a bit of a tough nut to crack,” Mike admits. “But I would say there are so many avenues and different skill sets involved in making games. Find what speaks to you.”