Seven Chartered Directors took part in this workshop facilitated by Laura Magahy (Chair), Sheila Byrne (IoD) and Karl Toomey (NCAD) from the Creative Boardroom team. Over the course of 3 hours, the team collaborated on a number of design thinking tasks that resulted in over 40 initial ideas focused on changing the temperature in the boardroom.

The group revisited the barriers and blockers to creating change in the boardroom that had been initially identified in our Belfast workshop with a focus on 3 core questions;

1.WHAT ARE WE WORKING TOWARDS? 

2.WHAT DO WE NEED TO OVERCOME TO GET THERE?

3.HOW MIGHT WE DO THAT SPECIFICALLY? 

With time and space to reflect on the barriers, the Directors refined each one in order to better meet the working brief and reflect their experiences. Some barriers listed for example were the differing levels of understanding Board Members have around what the climate emergency means for their organisation and how sustainability, for example, is not always embedded into the strategic planning cycle or the general business of the board.

Taking these revised barriers, the Directors then used a simple ‘What If’ template to generate initial ideas for each barrier. The goal here was to generate as many ideas as possible that connect to the working brief. This is a Design Thinking approach.

Since the workshop, the Creative Boardroom team has reviewed the 40+ ideas. Where there was crossover and commonality they merged ideas for clarity. To help navigate and digest the thinking of the group they arranged ideas into impact areas: categories to help frame activity. Once dismissed these ideas focused on the following 5 recommended actions:

1. Building a shared understanding
2. Showing what change actually looks like 
3. Making our journey public
4. Giving climate a permanent, central role around the table
5. Incentivising and celebrating progress

These were revisited in our second workshop in August and the focus was on discussing and prototyping the most viable, desirable and feasible of these ideas.

In this latest session, Directors and facilitators prioritised the ideas based on impact and viability with a focus on the Boardroom context and fleshed out ideas to reflect how they could be further developed and actioned. The focus was on discussing and prototyping the most effective, desirable and viable ideas.

10 Directors took part in this session, facilitated by the Creative Boardroom team at the NCAD campus. UCC researcher Lily Purcell joined in an observation capacity. The aim was to refine the brief developed at the last session and concentrate on what ideas feel most suited to the Creative Boardroom brief.

The group conducted a ‘bright star matrix’ of ideas for development focusing on the five main actions discussed (and cited above) in the July session. After a series of brainstorming discussions throughout the morning the Directors collectively refined a list of recommended actions. The group mapped out how best these actions could be applied.

The Creative Boardroom exhibition will launch on 21st November at the NCAD Gallery. It will run for 2 weeks.

The Creative Boardroom: Collaborate4Climate programme and team will now move into a phase of reflection and analysis on the key outputs and outcomes, and will conclude with an exhibition in NCAD Gallery, opening on 21st November 2024, and will run for two weeks.