Becoming CEO: for many career-climbers, that’s the dream, right?

But having made it to the top, many new CEOs find themselves unprepared to deal with their new bosses, aka the board of directors, which may include as many as 15 people, some of whom know very little about the company or even the broader industry.

This week: advice on how to build a productive relationship with a new-to-you board. Plus, the importance of being able to contextualize career disruptions, and when to stop searching for a novel solution to … just about anything.

Onboarding with a board

Kellogg’s Harry Kraemer, former CEO of Baxter International (and member of more than 20 boards) offers a four-step process to positive CEO–board relationships. Step one? Clear communication on both sides.

“From the board’s perspective, expectations should be clear around how often they want to meet with the CEO, the level of detail to be discussed, and their wish to hear not only about what’s going well, but also about the major issues and challenges facing the company,” writes Kraemer. “For the CEO, it’s reasonable to expect every board member to be on time for every meeting and to come prepared to challenge management in a respectful way. Arguably, the biggest expectation is that board members will know the difference between management and governance.”

You can read more of Kraemer’s advice in Kellogg Insight.

The importance of an effective story

People in “up-or-out” jobs, like in law or academia, have a limited amount of time to prove they deserve to keep their position. This added pressure can be especially difficult when their work is disrupted by factors beyond their control. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, for example, higher-education institutions allowed faculty seeking tenure to provide an impact statement describing events that disrupted their work.

Kellogg’s Lauren Rivera and her colleagues found that these impact statements were very effective: (fictional) tenure applications that included impact statements were reviewed significantly more favorably than applications that did not. Moreover, the benefit of the impact statements was similar for those who described caregiving challenges vs. laboratory closures—a pattern seen for both men and women.

By allowing people to contextualize their own work-related disruptions, says Rivera, impact statements “are powerful tools that can be used, in the right circumstances, to increase equity.” Read more in Kellogg Insight.

The least painful way to search

What’s the ideal way to search for something we want when we’re in unfamiliar territory—like a novice tennis player shopping for her first racket, or a pharmaceutical company determining the most effective dosage for a new drug? A mathematical model developed by the Kellogg School’s Suraj Malladi and colleagues brings us one step closer to answering this question.

“Search is costly—we can’t do it forever, so the goal isn’t to find the best thing that we possibly can,” Malladi explains. Instead, “the idea is that there are more and less painful ways” to learn where most of the good options tend to reside—“and I’m trying to solve for the least painful way.” Read more in Kellogg Insight.

Speaking of which: happy holidays! The Insightful Leader will be taking the next two weeks off, but we look forward to returning to your inbox in January.

Jessica Love, editor in chief
Kellogg Insight