ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the assessment of risk should connect the ‘monitoring the external environment’ in the first quadrant with the ‘strategic thinking’ leading to the development and implementation of strategies in the second quadrant. The bottom right quadrant is described by Garratt as ‘strategic thinking’. This quadrant has the characteristics of being both long term and internally orientated. Leading the board involves a number of tasks including the appropriate recruitment of skills and recognising diversity, deployment of those skills to committees, shaping agendas, encouraging engagement of board members and acknowledging their contribution. An essential building block of any key performance indicator system is the financial performance of the organisation. In turn an appreciation by the whole board of both the cash balances and the surplus/deficit positions of the organisation is essential; in the final analysis ‘cash is king’. The top left quadrant is described by Garratt as ‘accountability’; it is concerned with the short term and is externally orientated.
