Many of our clients run their own business. Some run smaller enterprises, perhaps with one business partner and a handful of staff. Others run family businesses or larger-scale operations with multiple owners and many employees. If you are reading this, we have most likely assisted you with an aspect of setting up or running your business.
As lawyers, a lot of what we do for you has a ‘point-in-time’ or ‘transactional’ focus. You might need our assistance to set up your new business entity, document your company’s constitution, involve employees in the ownership of your business, or pass the business between generations. After we have assisted you to complete these ‘point in time’ goals, we usually pass the baton back to you.
But these ‘point-in-time’ transactions are just the beginning. As soon as you involve other people in your business, you will inevitably need to turn your mind to ‘governance’ – i.e. the principles on which you are going to make and implement effective decisions over the longer term.
When things are good, they are good. However, when things go bad with your organisation’s governance … it can be catastrophic. Governance is so much more than the clauses in your governing documents. In our view, good governance requires a mix of measured judgment, confident leadership, and careful management of team dynamics. Having the right document in place is a great start, but you also need to develop and implement an effective ‘leadership routine’ over the longer term.
As your lawyers, one of our objectives is to expand the network of people you can draw on to achieve longer term success. We want to help you foster connections with people who might be able to collaborate with you, and provide you with support and advice in areas that fall outside our expertise.
We recently had the opportunity to attend a webinar presented by Lisa Coletta from The Governance Collective on ‘Closing the Governance Gap’. Lisa is a governance specialist who advises her clients about the skills they need to effectively govern their organisations. Lisa is also one of our valued clients. Lisa loves to work with boards and executives to shape, drive and implement governance policy, frameworks, and processes so they can facilitate effective decision-making and strategy. We thought Lisa’s session was practical and avoided tedious (or confusing!) corporate-speak jargon. We think Lisa’s offering fits in with how we like to provide practical and operational legal advice.
Lisa has generously offered our clients and referrers the opportunity to attend one of her fortnightly webinars on ‘Closing the Governance Gap’ for no charge, so you can see for yourself how Lisa can help transform your governance practices. If you are thinking about going into business, getting out of business, growing your business, or improving your organisation’s governance, then we think it would be a worthwhile hour for you to attend. We also think other advisers, such as our accountant and financial advisory friends, will also benefit from this practical session.
If you are interested in attending ‘Closing the Governance Gap’ you can follow this link to register for one of the fortnightly webinar sessions and use the special coupon code ‘ANDREYEV’ to claim your free spot in the session.
If you enjoy the presentation and want to speak more to Lisa about how she can help transform your organisation’s governance practices, you can follow this link to book a 30 minute obligation-free discussion with Lisa on your potential governance needs.
We don’t benefit from your attendance at Lisa’s webinar, other than from the warm and fuzzy feeling of knowing we’ve played a part in connecting you to somebody whose knowledge and experience we admire. If you do attend Lisa’s webinar, we would love to hear what you thought.