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'Turkeys Don't Vote for Thanksgiving!' Metaphors Used by Australian Company Directors to Describe Contradictions and Constraints on Optimal Board Performance

This report examines how Australian company directors make sense of what they perceive as conflicting responsibilities and objectives, and to identify what they see as the main constraints on optimal board functioning. Sixty directors, either managing directors (n = 14), board chairs (n = 24) or other non-executive directors (n = 22), from the Top 200 companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange completed two-hour, in-depth, semi-structured interviews regarding the internal and external influences on board processes and decision-making. Company directors felt constrained by four dominant mindsets – risk aversion, short-termism, over-scrutiny, and anti-business cultural values, imposed on them by four constituencies – ‘professional’ directors, irrational investors, overzealous media, and overbearing regulators. In order to make sense of and cope with the conflicting demands of these mindsets, these directors used multiple metaphors falling into the general categories of alternative professions, plants and animals, and travel and geography. Together these mindsets and metaphors conveyed the action sequences of celebrities evading unwanted attention, authority figures punishing naughty children, and explorers turning back or needing quick fixes due to unforeseen obstacles. These Australian company directors conveyed a fundamental disconnect between what they feel they are supposed to do – building the long-term wealth of shareholders – and what they are allowed to do given scrutiny by internal (‘professional’ directors and irrational investors) and external (overzealous media, and overbearing regulators) constituencies. This perceived over-scrutiny may lead Australian directors to adopt a short-term, risk-averse perspective leading to sub-optimal financial performance over time.