Strategy
Pricing Power Has to Be Earned Again
An executive pricing agenda should connect the customer’s economics with the company’s economics. The strongest price is one the buyer can defend after the purchase.
The boardroom brief
Build a Board That Improves Decisions
The quality of governance becomes visible in the choices a company makes, the assumptions it challenges and the speed with which it responds to contrary evidence.
Beyond an orderly agenda
A board can receive its papers on time, complete its committee calendar and still approve a weak strategic decision. The meeting may be orderly while the proposal depends on an untested demand forecast, an optimistic integration plan or a management team unwilling to acknowledge a constraint. Good procedure creates the opportunity for sound judgment. Directors must still use it.
The governance agenda is particularly concrete in 2026. Under the UK Corporate Governance Code 2024, Provision 29 applies to financial years beginning on or after January 1, 2026 and asks boards for a declaration concerning material internal controls. The Code applies to specified UK listing categories. For boards elsewhere, the broader management question remains useful: what evidence makes our assurance credible?
Our recommendation is to evaluate board effectiveness through a sample of consequential decisions. Examine what information directors received, which alternatives they considered, what changed because of discussion and how the company later tested the underlying assumptions. This gives the chair a more practical picture than meeting satisfaction alone.
Frame the decision before selling the proposal
Require the opening page of a major submission to state the decision requested and the problem it addresses. Include the cost of waiting, the principal uncertainty and the consequences if management is wrong. A director should not have to reconstruct these matters from a long presentation organized around the sponsor’s preferred answer.
Ask management to distinguish facts, estimates and judgments. A signed contract differs from a sales pipeline. An observed customer response differs from an assumption about demand. A technically possible integration differs from one the existing team has capacity to complete. The board should be able to see which parts of the recommendation will survive if the most favorable assumptions do not.
Present at least one credible alternative when the decision is material. Maintaining the current course may be a genuine option, but it must include its costs and risks. A deliberately weak alternative offers no useful test. Directors need to understand whether management has compared plausible choices or merely prepared a defense of a decision already made.
Make challenge useful
The Financial Reporting Council’s governance guidance identifies predictable threats to judgment, including dominant personalities, inadequate information and insufficient debate. It also encourages boards to document reasons and review significant decisions. Those principles support a board process that surfaces uncertainty while there is still time to change the proposal.
The chair should invite informed disagreement early. Ask a director with relevant expertise to explain the strongest case against the recommendation, then ask management what evidence would change its view. Ensure that quieter directors speak before the conversation settles around the most forceful personality. The goal is a better choice, with enough time left to make it.
Challenge should remain proportionate. A reversible operating experiment does not need the same depth of analysis as a major acquisition or an irreversible asset commitment. Specify which decisions belong with management, which require committee review and which require the full board. Excessive escalation can weaken accountability by allowing executives to treat directors as an additional operating layer.
Keep a record of the bet
The G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance provide an international benchmark for the institutions and practices of good governance. Their relevance extends beyond the mechanics of one jurisdiction. A board’s legitimacy depends in part on its ability to explain how oversight and accountability serve the company and its stakeholders.
For a major strategic commitment, preserve a concise decision record. State the expected value, the assumptions that matter most, the exposure the company is accepting and the evidence that would trigger reconsideration. Assign an executive to monitor each critical assumption. This document should be short enough to revisit without reopening the entire original board pack.
Treat the record as a learning instrument. A favorable result can follow a poor process because external conditions happened to help. A sound process can produce a disappointing result because a risk materialized. Directors should examine both outcome and reasoning. Otherwise success teaches overconfidence and failure teaches only that someone needs to leave.
Connect control assurance with strategy
Internal controls become more useful to directors when linked to the choices that create value and risk. If the growth plan depends on rapid customer onboarding, ask which controls preserve service quality and contractual accuracy as volume increases. If a strategy depends on a small supplier group, ask what information would reveal deterioration before the company experiences a disruption.
Management should explain gaps plainly, including their business significance, interim protection and remediation date. Directors should distinguish an isolated defect from a weakness in design or supervision. A dashboard that shows every control in green may be reassuring, but its credibility depends on the willingness and ability of employees to report a problem.
At the end of a board cycle, select one decision that improved because directors engaged and one that would benefit from a different process. Ask what each reveals about information quality, time allocation and independence of judgment. A board earns its value through choices that withstand scrutiny and through the discipline to revise them when the evidence changes.
Evidence & further reading
Go to the source.
- UK Corporate Governance Code 2024Financial Reporting Council · 2024-01-22
- Corporate Governance Code GuidanceFinancial Reporting Council · 2024; current guidance verified October 3, 2026
- G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance 2023OECD · 2023
Executive analysis informed by the linked sources. Hypothetical examples are identified in the text. Published 3 October 2026.
Continue the conversation
Read next
Strategy
Growth Is Uneven. Your Strategy Should Be Precise.
The next planning cycle calls for a sharper view of customers, cash and commitment. A global forecast is the beginning of that work.
Strategy
The Supply Chain That Can Change Its Mind
Resilience earns its place in the operating model when alternatives are qualified, affordable and ready to use.