Scaling With People
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Scaling With People
The Unsexy Side of Success: Corporate Governance Simplified
Corporate governance. Those two words alone can make even the most confident entrepreneur break out in a cold sweat. But what if I told you it doesn't have to be complicated, boring, or something only Fortune 500 companies need to worry about?
My conversation with corporate governance consultant Anoushka from Marcelino Marie Solutions completely transformed my understanding of this critical business function. Far from being a bureaucratic burden, governance is simply about having documented systems for decision-making. "Think about corporate governance. Just reduce it down to what is the system that you have in place to make decisions," Anoushka explains, cutting through the intimidation factor immediately.
The reality is that every business faces risks - whether it's half your team getting sick (hello, pandemic lessons), your payroll manager suddenly quitting, or having too many key employees traveling on the same plane. Having simple, clear processes documented before emergencies strike can mean the difference between a minor hiccup and a business-ending catastrophe. And the documentation doesn't need to be complex - in fact, simpler is better when it comes to creating systems people will actually use.
Anoushka recommends starting with whatever keeps you up at night. Is it financial reporting? Employee turnover? Safety concerns? Begin there, document your process clearly, and build from there. The key is taking baby steps rather than trying to create comprehensive governance structures overnight. Even better, leverage your team's expertise and use tools like AI to help maintain and retrieve your documentation when needed.
Whether you're a solo entrepreneur or leading a growing team, this episode offers practical guidance for creating the governance foundation your business needs to weather unexpected challenges and scale successfully. Listen now, and turn what seems intimidating into your competitive advantage.
Welcome everyone to today's Scaling with People podcast. I'm Gwendolyn Curry, your host and founder and CEO of Guide to HR. So have you ever heard the term corporate governance and immediately pictured a shadowy, dark boardroom filled with stern-faced executives whispering secrets and plotting world domination? Yeah, I have too right. I don't ever want to talk about governance.
Speaker 2:But here we are.
Speaker 1:We're going to talk about today because, guess what? It's not as scary as you think. In fact, it's something every business big or small startup been in business forever should be thinking about. I'm so excited to be having Anoshka on the call today to tell us a little bit more about why this isn't scary and why every company should be thinking about it. So welcome Anashka and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm going to be right. Thanks very much for having me. And it's really funny that we're talking about corporate governance, because our two countries are at economic war right now. So I was thinking I hope we're not committing an act of treason by talking to each other right now.
Speaker 1:Yes, because you're in Canada and I'm in the States. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:And we've got a very important hockey game going down in an hour's time Canada's political sovereignty might be on the line if we don't pull out a win here.
Speaker 2:So I'm a little bit nervous, but we'll see what happens.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, no, thank you for the invitation.
Speaker 2:Um, I am the founder of my own company, marcelino marie solutions, and I am a corporate governance consultant, and part of the reason I wanted to go into this work is such an emerging need that I am seeing all across the board, as you said in your introduction non-profit, small community groups, huge multinational businesses.
Speaker 2:I think, coming out of COVID, which was a watershed for so many different areas, people are starting to realize that if we don't have plans for things like mass absences you know, a workforce that might just up and leave because they decide they want to do something else, Business continuity in the face of risks if companies aren't equipped to have systems to deal with these kinds of challenges, they're not going to be very successful. So, especially in the world of startup you know it's sometimes go, go, go all the time. You're really thinking about growing. If you don't take a minute to just think about some of the base foundations, some of your growth could be compromised, and we don't want to see that. So I'm hoping that I can provide a few practical tips for people to think about as they're going about building their own businesses.
Speaker 1:I love it. And as you're talking, I literally jumped to a fear I had last week where one of my clients they had a huge offsite brought up more than 50% of their employee population and they were all coming from similar places. So my brain was thinking I really hope they're not on the same plane and worst case scenario, you know doomsday, thinking that plane doesn't make it, right, like I would pray, no matter what, every plane makes it to their destination. But, like you know, as a company, if you're losing half of your employee population because they're on the same plane and that plane doesn't make it, oh my gosh, you've totally, like destroyed your business. So putting in smart policies to ensure that that doesn't happen, and you know, unfortunately, if a plane doesn't make it, you might lose two or three of your employees, but not 30, 40, 50, or, like you know, 50%, 60% of your employee population. So yeah, I was just thinking about that as you were talking such a simple policy to protect your business continuity.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure, and I think sometimes the words corporate governance sound really big and really scary.
Speaker 2:So people either don't want to deal with it, or they think it's really boring, and then they don't also want to deal with it.
Speaker 2:Or they think it's really boring, and then they don't also want to deal with it because it's not the sexy thing that's getting attention.
Speaker 2:So, for me, the one tip that I would give people is think about corporate governance.
Speaker 2:Just reduce it down to what is the system that you have in place to make decisions decisions about how you're going to hire, how you're going to hire, how you're going to advertise, how you're going to react in the event of some sort of threat or opportunity that's facing your business and write it down. What is the process that you have taken to document those thought processes or those other processes, and just make sure that they are transparent so that your staff know what to expect your vendors, that your staff know what to expect your vendors or your partners know what to expect your funders know what to expect, and you can then operate in a very consistent way. Corporate governance whether that is, you know, your employee handbook, the way that you hire, your approach to occupational health and safety. All of that ties into what your company brand is and it will help you to inform decisions about you, know your social media presence, your active marketing or advertising in a very consistent way that helps you stay true to whatever values or mission you have decided to create for yourself.
Speaker 1:And your brand overall brand too.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Again, as you're talking about, I kind of like envision. Like you know, on a personal level, you should know where your urgent care is, where your emergency room is, because you know when you need it. That's when you don't have the mental capacity to be like looking it up on your phone or your app, or going to your carrier asking your HR person or whatever it is. However, you're going to get that information right. You're just going to go to wherever it is that you should be going and so having that be known ahead of time. So when you get into that emergency state it's not this frazzled moment you can execute very cleanly, get to a place where you know you're taking care of that emergency and you can survive it hopefully, yeah for sure, and I think what companies are starting to see is it's better to take you know a day and do some planning around.
Speaker 2:What are the key aspects of your business that you might need to think about from an emergency preparedness perspective, rather than the old way of doing things, which is wait for a problem to crop up whether it's around a perceived conflict of interest or professional conduct that might lead to some sort of a complaint on an HR side of things and instead put those things out as policies or statements or processes beforehand, so that there's some guidance in place for when the unexpected does happen and you're not starting from scratch, but you've got some sort of a policy or a directive that can help you in the right direction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, as you said earlier, it's all about tying it back to your mission, your vision, your virtues, your values, your overall brand, and having calm moments where you can think about that, to create what the execution plan looks like, rather than being in that urgent, like hair on fire you know dumpster fire situation where you're just trying to like take the key at the fire out. Then you're going to be able to have a smoother transit and solve the problem more likely faster as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think you know, even for smaller startups, this is a really great opportunity to. I'm going to steal a phrase from your recent guest who spoke about company communication, but he used the frame of involve, inform and inspire your team. These are great ways, you know, whether it's the development of corporate values formally, or an employee handbook, or you know something as operational as your guide to how you're going to procure goods and services from other parties. Get your staff involved. More than likely.
Speaker 2:They're the subject matter experts. They probably have a good read on what are the big risks or trends or opportunities that we should be paying attention to, based on what sector we're in and what are the things that should really be consuming our attention from a planning standpoint. So that we've done that risk analysis, we have a sense of how we're going to mitigate those risks if they should come to pass and if there is some sort of a you know, god forbid we live through another pandemic but if there is some sort of a massive disruption of that nature, what are the things that we have thought about that will help us have that competitive advantage and be more prepared, potentially, than other people in our sector? And you know, use AI. I'm saying write things down. You don't need to. These don't need to be really difficult drawn out processes. There are lots of technology pieces that can take your ideas and help you in creating some tools that will be with you to guide the company in its day to day work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I honestly think just keeping it simple, like, keep it simple, it makes it easier to execute, makes it easy for everyone to understand exactly the intent and what they're supposed to do. The more like you know 40 page document is not going to no one's going to execute on that right, the more like you know 40 page document is not going to no one's going to execute on that right, like like four bullet points, if you can right, maybe it needs to be four pages.
Speaker 1:But yeah, keep it simple, keep it really crisp, like you know, third grade language or seventh or, twelfth or depending on you know your org but like, just simplify it so that it's easy to execute and then make sure you put it in a place that's easy to find. Right. That's another one right. So where does one start? Because this feels, if I was a like as a business owner, this feels very daunting. Like, do I start on the HR side? Do I start on my finance side? Do I start on the marketing side? Do I start like how the business? Like where does one start? How do they can? Just the baby?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think you know you probably want to start with the thing that is consuming most of your time, the thing that's keeping you up at night right now. What is the thing that you seem to be focused on? So, is it? You know, we don't really seem to have a good mechanism for reporting our financial success back to our funders or our shareholders. Is that your biggest concern? Are you experiencing a lot of turnover right now, or are you finding it hard to attract talent into your organization and so maybe there's some critical skills gaps? Then you might want to think about being more explicit on okay, we need to be very clear about what our values are, what kind of a culture we're trying to build, or that kind of a thing. If you're producing something and there are some really real health and safety risks for the employees that are in your company, maybe you want to start with occupational health and safety and making sure you know are we, at least you know, in bare minimum compliance with whatever regulatory regime we're operating under, and do staff feel safe? What are we doing to communicate that and show that we care about? You know them going home to their families every single night. So start with that one problem.
Speaker 2:There are so many different aspects. So HR, finance, legal procurement, stakeholder relations there could be any number of them and it can get very overwhelming. So start with one To your point. Keep it simple, write it down so that there is a common reference point, and I think when we're forced to write things down it forces us to think through, kind of start to end how would somebody with no context interpret this? Make sure that you're using very, very plain language and you know, go from there, because that in itself, just taking that one big problem might spur you to think about other areas that you may want to tackle later. And if where you get is addressing one problem but you've made a sequence of what are the priorities you want to address next, you're probably further ahead than you think. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you may even have some things already in place. It's just more of the organization and just making sure people know where to find it and how to execute on what you already may have in place too Absolutely, and I to your point.
Speaker 2:I just can't stress enough keeping it simple. I have worked a lot with organizations that will, you know, spend weeks or months developing this beautiful SharePoint library or some sort of an intranet, and then what happens in six months when you actually need something? No one's kept it updated. It's full of, you know, obsolete materials, of points to people that aren't even with the company anymore. So the simpler you can keep it, the more motivation you're going to have to make sure it stays updated, and that in itself can be part of your business continuity. Planning is making sure that, as you go about your operations and your planning for the year, you've allocated a little bit of time to review what you've already got on the books and make sure okay, does this still make sense for our evolving context? Do we need to update it? Is there anything we can lose? Is there something new that we need to add in, even if it's once a?
Speaker 1:year. That would again put many companies that have their competitors it's not a one and done right, just like any other thing, that you're working on.
Speaker 1:It's not one and done. You have to reiterate on it, you have to update it, you have to keep it alive and just kind of thinking about a really good example like corporate governance. To me, like that's just like. My mind just goes in so many different directions, but if we want to really keep it simple, it's basically an SLP of a process, if you like, this is how you do this process. If this happens, this is what you need to do. And even like thinking about what's like from an HR perspective, what's the most important thing Paying our people, like, like legally, I got to pay the people on time, to know in what country there's different ramifications, but that's like.
Speaker 1:So what happens if the person that runs payroll gets hit by a bus or gets sick or you know, goes out on vacation and doesn't communicate something? And all of a sudden, now you need to do that and you're like I don't know how to run payroll, kind of thing. Right, so if there's an SOP in that situation, you will prepare and be successful on executing in any kind of situation you might find yourself in. But an SOP can literally be just like a couple of steps. It doesn't have to be some crazy document that, like, you're not going to want to read, you may throw into AI and be like okay, I tell you what I need to do based off of this right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I think the other things that it does is it really clarifies the levels of decision making for different topics. So you know, going back to how this could relate to values depending on the size of your organization, how flat do you want to make it? How much empowerment do you want to give to staff when they're dealing with clients or customers or anybody else that they may be working with? Is there a real centralization that you want to make sure that everything is run in a very consistent way, or do you want to have it more dispersed so there might be more variation in how things go? But then again, you, as the founder, are going to be dealing with a lot less of those issues and you can provide training or standards for people to follow. So you've got some sort of backup in terms of measuring people's performance or client satisfaction and it all can also help you be scalable too.
Speaker 1:So, as you grow, you now have this documentation in place that can help people get ramped up, depending on the different types of documentation. Right, they know, they know what's going on, they know who the players are, they know who the decision makers are, so that can be very helpful in a scaling organization, absolutely, yeah. So what kind of trends? As you're working with different customers and clients out there, what kind of trends are you seeing, especially in 2025?
Speaker 2:Well, I am very excited for my business that this is simply an area that is starting to get attention. I think for too long we all sort of managed by emergency, so there were a lot of times we wouldn't take the time to think about these things in advance. An urgent situation came up, you're trying to deal with it and also trying to put in rules at the same time to prevent a recurrence. That's not. You know, operating under that kind of pressure doesn't always produce the best results. So, again, I think COVID forced so many people to relook at the way they ran their businesses, because no one had ever planned for what are we going to do if half of our workforce is sick and isn't, you know, by law, not allowed to come into the office because we had to keep everybody isolated? You know, pursuant to that, we also saw the great resignation happen.
Speaker 2:What happens when people just up and leave? They decide nope, I'm going to either start my own business, I'm going to take early retirement, I'm going to go work at Starbucks so I have less stress in my life. Succession planning really wasn't something that people talked about. I think you know there had been this idea that all these baby boomers were going to leave the workforce in droves. That didn't quite happen. We're probably starting to see it a bit now, and even that happening, and with millennials bringing such different expectations for the workforce and not necessarily signing on to this idea of company loyalty long term, it's forced a lot of on the fly management. So I'm just happy to see that, regardless of circumstance or size, more organizations are starting to think about this more proactively, so that they're giving themselves the time and the space to get prepared, so that they're better equipped to deal with the unexpected when it inevitably does come.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and a good leader is one who's always looking around the corner before you're ready to turn right and trying to prepare for what is around that corner and set expectations and put plans in place so that you can tackle whatever the beast or the pothole or whatever is out there right Like being able to just kind of make sure you're leading that business through continuity and growth so well. As we wrap up here, I'd love to get some insight from you on any last, like final thoughts or tidbits on when you're thinking about corporate governance, or I'm going to call it an SOP, because I feel like that's a little less scarier. What other takeaways should we be thinking about or ways that we should be handling this within our business?
Speaker 2:So I think I'm going to distill the whole concept down into a couple of key questions that you should spend some time thinking about, either yourself or with your leadership team. What are the biggest dangers our company faces? Or with your leadership team? What are the biggest dangers our company faces? What are the biggest opportunities that we can seize? What have we decided on as process to get through any of those things? How have we documented them and how are we using AI to make our lives easier in doing this? You know, if you really break corporate governance down to those elements. Ultimately, it's about identifying the areas where you might need to have some sort of a policy or an SOP in place, Thinking about what the major risks or potential risks to your business are and working through what mitigation plans could be, and then making sure you're involving your staff in either the development of these things or at least the information and the communication and the training of them, so that you don't have these sterile documents but they become lived expectations through your workforce.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love. I love the AI about it too, because if you have something already in place, AI can help you incorporate that into a, you know, more structure if you need it, and you can actually have it help you update your content and use AI to help you keep it alive and keep it growing and making sure that people know where to find it. Depending on what AI tools you have in-house already or not, there's a lot of cool tools out there that can help you basically create a bot for your employees or management to ask a question and it searches your documentation and your wiki site or whatever it is you have. So, yeah, AI is becoming a really good friend of ours, I think, in some capacity, especially in documentation landscape.
Speaker 2:And I'm really happy to hear you say that from an HR perspective too, because I think there's a lot of fear around AI still that the robots are coming for their jobs. Because I think there's a lot of fear around AI still that the robots are coming for their jobs. Certainly, I think there's a lot of benefit to be had in taking advantage of it to automate certain things, but it's going to free you up for these higher level discussions or conversations that maybe AI can help you with. But ultimately, it comes down to what's the alignment to values and how does your company specifically want to think about these things? So, you know, being able to leverage a bot to do some of that lower level work, to give you more capacity to think about some of these more foundational and important things, is super, super helpful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Well. Thank you, Anushka. It was fun talking. It's actually fun talking about corporate governance, I don't know. I hope our listeners got some fun things out of it and maybe we made it a little less scary for them and start just to. It's all about baby steps. We all have a lot going on in our world. There's a lot of noise everywhere and my recommendation to you is just baby step it. You know one little bite and all of a sudden you look back three, six months later you're like, wow, I got a lot done, versus trying to like consume the whole thing at once. It's like I use the analogy of you're an ant trying to eat a hamburger. You can't eat it in one bite, right?
Speaker 2:But you can eat it over time.
Speaker 1:But it's these baby bites and these baby steps that help you get there and lean on. Lean on your team, right, like, hopefully you're not a company of one, but if you are okay, then baby bites, and if you're not, you know have have your team members help you and if you all do baby bites, you're going to be able to get through it and keep it alive and really, really build a good foundation for your business to scale and grow and not end up being obsolete because something happened and you didn't have a plan to help your business get through it.
Speaker 2:Like so many things in life, starting is the hardest part. So thank you for listening, because even thinking about it is probably a good step for most founders to get going on. So yeah, hopefully we've demystified it a little bit and people have been able to take away a couple of tips.
Speaker 1:And if they have any questions they want to ask you or how can they find you.
Speaker 2:So my company is Marcelino Marie. Solutionscom is my website. I'm also will have a link in the bottom, yeah, and I would love to chat with anyone that wants to know a little bit more or discuss how I might be able to support them.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Thanks so much for joining everyone and until next time, have a great day, afternoon, evening, wherever you are in the world, take it easy, thank you.
