You glanced at the title of this blog. Did you imagine another blog piece about the mind of an entrepreneur, a strategy advisor or an executive leader?
You’re half right.
Did you expect a new research insight or a consultant survey?
You’re wrong.
We have to go back more than 2000 years. The Stoics used the term directing mind (hegemonikon) for the reason that governs our thoughts, our decisions and our reactions. The great Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius put it this way in Book 6 of his Meditations: “The directing mind is that which wakes itself, adapts itself, makes itself of whatever nature it wishes, and makes all that happens to it appear in the way it wants.”
This series, Boardroom Meditations, takes its name from his book.
My mind. Your mind. Each mind is indeed a living thing that has the power to wake up from a state of ignorance, capable of shaping and reshaping itself when the situation changes. How your mind understands what your eyes observe and your ears hear is the sole and absolute prerogative of your mind. That applies to you, to me and to anybody else. That power and that privilege is a double-edged sword. A tragedy is only a tragedy if your mind labels it that way. A triumph is only a triumph if your mind perceives it that way. Is a failure truly a failure or a valuable lesson learned? Is the news you just read really news or just distracting noise? Your mind makes that call. For you. My mind, for me.
Now look at the boardroom. We call its members directors for a reason. The board guides the company the way the mind guides the body, while being carried by that same body. Is a missed quarter a failure or a lesson? Is a competitor’s move a threat or noise? Is a crisis a tragedy or a turning point? The board makes that call for the company. The board is the directing mind of the company.
The boardroom gathers the members who represent the directing mind of a company. Each board member is a part of that whole. And each member brings a directing mind of their own. That makes Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations deeply relevant to the boardroom.
In the startup garage, the entrepreneur is the board, and the board is the entrepreneur. In private equity or venture capital, the board is sometimes an investor, and an investor is the board. Whatever the nature of the board, small or large, internal or external, Marcus Aurelius deserves a seat at the table.
The strength of the company’s directing mind comes from the directing minds around the table. Is it their sum or their product? The difference matters. In a sum, a weaker mind simply adds less. In a product, a single mind at zero brings the whole to zero.
Hence each individual mind would do well to remember the Stoic wisdom that the nature of the whole precedes the nature of its parts. The humble realization that one is only a small and temporary part of a larger whole is a sensible starting point.
What made sense in the world of the Stoics still makes sense in today’s boardroom.
Quotations from Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, translated with notes by Martin Hammond (Penguin Classics, 2006)