Seven experiential suggestions for Independent Directors
- by Mr. Nirmalendu Mohapatra, Independent Director, Kudremukh Iron Ore Company (KIOCL) Ltd.
This vignette is based on an experience sharing article received from the Independent Director as part of the initiative of “Scheme 1: Share with Us” …for fostering peer learning amongst IDs to enhance the “Learning from practice to inform practice” taking experiential learning approach.
The author having served as a whole time director (WTD) in a well-known PSU, few years ago; later worked as an Independent director in another PSU. With two such facets of role opportunity and context to get a dual perspective of challenges of Independent Directors (ID), the author shares his hands on experiences transformed into seven experimental suggestions…purely based on his practical experiences in two Boards.
Practicing Independent Directors can map their context and consider implementation of these experimental suggestions. However, these opinions are purely the writers’ individual viewpoint and cannot be endorsed to the companies he has worked for.
The board members are matured professionals with expertise in divergent disciplines. However, there is a general perception that some Independent Directors remain passive throughout the board proceedings and rarely share their views or comments. Similar observations on some whole time directors (WTD) when they speak-out only on something related to their domain specializations … like Finance, Marketing or Operation taken up.
A progressive Board on the other hand, requires proactive participation by all the members of the Board and with vibrant synergy to provide a competitive edge. Only such a Board can reap the full benefits of diversity of knowledge and experience of the collectiveness.
From his board practice experiences, the authors understands that it might be difficult on part of Independent Directors to introduce new practices or adopting best practices across the industry yet not impossible He has a belief that we should place efforts and exert to understand the suitability and relevance of the proposed seven experimental suggestions for their implementation in practice.
