What's really in a name? A. Rose ...

I've taken a digression from our normal topics this week to look at a different type of governance: have you noticed how often our elected leaders have surnames beginning with letters in the first half of the alphabet - Bush, Blair, Clinton, Clark?

I thought I would take a deeper look at whether there was anything to this.

I looked at who has been elected to lead four different, but related, countries, the US, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. I've excluded those who reached the top through succession or internal 'coup' (Gerald Ford, Jenny Shipley, Gordon Brown - so far), unless they went on to win an election in their own right (Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Paul Keating).

To give myself a reasonable sample size, I have looked at leaders who first came to power since 1939, which seems as much a watershed date as any, arguably representing the start of the era we're now in. My final 'control' check was to see where the middle of the alphabet really falls: the halfway-point in my telephone book is towards the end of 'L', so I have taken all those whose name begins with 'M' or later as being in the second half.

What I found quite surprised me. You have almost exactly twice the chance of being elected leader of your country if your name falls in the first half of the alphabet.

There are of course some notable exceptions to this - Thatcher, Reagan, Muldoon and Rudd - but perhaps another theme from Shakespeare takes over here:

"There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."

In other words, perhaps the forces leading to some of these results were so powerful (stale government, desire for change) that, to quote the Australian cliche, a "drover's dog" (or Moggie?) could have done it.

Another point to ponder is that those with the most ignominious endings carried 'second-half' names (thinking, briefly, of Nixon and Whitlam). New Zealand has had more than its share of leaders who got to the top via a leadership change between elections (Marshall, Rowling, Palmer, Moore and Shipley). All have 'second-half' surnames and all reinforce my findings by either failing to win, or (Palmer) not lasting until, the next election.

Is this all just a statistical blip? Or does it have something to do with our childhood conditioning, during those years of waiting our turn in the school playground ("Get to the back of the line, Zebedee")?

Either way, it puts an interesting slant on the current US presidential campaign - since we're likely to see both candidates sporting 'second-half' surnames. Perhaps we shouldn't write Hillary off just yet ... or watch her again in 2012!

(Yes, I've looked at my own chances - 'W' - and I have decided not to throw in the day job!)

So although he/she might smell as sweet, "A. Rose" might have a better chance of leading their country by taking a different type of flora for a surname ... um, er, Bush?

FICKS your Board

An excellent article in last month's Harvard Business Review, 'Leading from the Boardroom,' highlights a paradox that many Boards face.

Directors know - or ought to know - that the real task of a Board is 'to build tomorrow's company out of today's'. The authors of the article, Jay Lorsch and Robert Clark, note that as the pressure on compliance grows, a Board's natural response is to spend more time on avoiding mistakes and minimising risks, rather than focusing on long-range planning. As a result, they expose their companies to potentially even bigger risks.

Think of the Board of a manufacturer of music CDs: what's the value of making sure we comply with every regulation and check every figure against last month's results, if we miss the fact that Steve Jobs of Apple has reinvented our industry - and that nobody wants to buy CDs when they can download their Amy Winehouse favourites onto their iPod? Oops, suddenly we don't have a business. That's the type of issue that Boards ought to be thinking about!

In my advisory work, I've developed a way for Boards to segment their work: I call it 'FICKS', obviously a catchy name (well, I think so) but also a helpful acronym for the five key functions of a Board:

• F - Future Focus - making sure we have the right Chief Executive (for the next few years as opposed to the last few), and working with management on strategy development and execution (let's spend about 30% of our time here - even though it's scary because it involves making decisions about an uncertain future);

• I - Issues Identification - understanding our environment, spotting the trends, communicating with our stakeholders so they understand what we're doing (another 30%);

• C - Compliance - it's still important to make sure we keep to the law, regulations and best practices, and monitor the risks the business faces, but not at the expense of looking ahead (perhaps 15% of our time);

• K - KPI ('Key Performance Indicator') Monitoring - sorry to tell you this, but you don't usually need to spend half of every Board meeting asking the same questions about the numbers and budgets that you asked last month (15% again);

• S - Succession and Skills - making sure we've got the right people at the Board table and in top management to deal with what we'll be facing over the next few years (the remaining 10%).

We can break this into three broader categories - the first two (F & I) are about creating value (cumulatively 60%), the next two (C & K) involve preserving value (30%), and the last (S) deals with the ability to keep adding value in the future.

In summary, the latter categories (C, K & S) are a means to the end - the end being to look ahead and build the organisation of tomorrow. That's where, as directors, we build the legacy that makes our job worthwhile.

Of course it's never this simple or so clearly segmented in real life - any decent strategy proposal will have elements of all five! And the proportions will vary from meeting to meeting. But I've found that 'FICKS' is a useful reality check on how a Board really spends its time, and whether it is dealing with the right things - as opposed to dealing well (perhaps) but with the wrong things.

You may get a surprise when you think about how your Board spends its time. But I'm sure the exercise will be worth it.

(Oh, and if you do find this is of any use to you, some attribution of my trademark, 'FICKS', would be appreciated, thank you!)