🏛️ Courageous Governance | INSEAD Strategy Forum | boards leading under uncertainty
On 4 June, IDN Netherlands hosted a breakout session at the INSEAD Strategy Forum in museum ’t Hart, Amsterdam.
Governance was built for a world where the future was broadly continuous with the past. That world is gone.
We explored the Exploit–Explore balance. Board agendas remain dominated by oversight and performance review — the Exploit side. The case for a shift is clear: boards need to build capabilities on the Explore side — strategic imagination, future sensing, and experimentation.
Participants identified the first capability their board needs to develop. What emerged from the tables:
🔹 Cohesion in the team — trust as the foundation for courageous conversations
🔹 Connection with the exec team — exploring together, not apart
🔹 Playfulness — space to think freely, without premature judgment
🔹 Future-forward orientation — from backward-looking review to forward-looking imagination
🔹 Constructive dissent — the habit of productive challenge
🔹 Chair’s role — protecting agenda time for strategic exploration
🔹 Strategic imagination — especially for organisations with large societal ambitions
🔹 Future-back thinking — start from a desired future, work back to today
Courageous governance is not a nice-to-have. It is the work.
Thank you to everyone who joined and contributed. 🙏