Helping CEOs, Chairs and Shareholders work effectively through the Scale-Up phase
At Frog Capital we have spent a significant amount of time focussing on CEO’s and their teams in the scale-up process and how to match the team’s development to be at the same trajectory of their enterprise. Now, in collaboration with John Sutherland, our Operating Partner who specialises in organisational psychology and team development, we are turning our attention to the importance of chairing the Board and the role of the Chair, as another critical success factor in our Scale-up Methodology.
The following toolkit is founded upon interviews with a range of successful Scale-Up Chair people, as well as our own experience. The majority of Chair people are experienced leaders and already have some form of personal playbook when it comes to chairing organisations. Our framework is not seeking to replace this, but instead offer a constructive challenge to ensure the balance of focus is appropriate for the situation in hand.
To stimulate reflection and discussion, the Chairing Framework is asking you where your emphasis is across 5 elements;
1) Strategic time horizon
Do you focus on the longer or shorter term?
2) Stakeholder focus
Are you concentrating on the Team or Shareholders?
3) Approach
Is your leaning towards Governance or Mentoring?
4) Style
Are you more adaptive to a situation or intentional?
5) Development Strategy
Are you focused more on the Team or the Board?
Our experience in using this framework is that it can act as a useful prompt for reflection and refinement for Chairs, CEOs and Board Directors/Investors.
Having an overall framework also allows for some benchmarking comparisons, allowing Chairs, who may seldom meet up with other Chairs, an opportunity to explore how others see the role.
