The 3 Questions Your Leadership Must Answer During Quarantine

The 3 Questions Your Leadership Must Answer During Quarantine 

3 minute read

As the COVID-19 crisis upends business norms, we all must adapt. This new normal requires fast, effective decisions to be made by teams that are forced to do their work while far apart. When the only way to connect is digitally, we must do so intentionally and efficiently.

Here are three questions leaders must ask now to lead successfully during quarantine.

1. ACCESS: How are we providing decision makers with secure access to what they need?

The COVID-19 crisis has pushed almost everyone into remote work — and fast. Many leadership teams quickly jumped into using a mix of separate video conferencing, messaging and document storage apps or software. While this can be a good stop-gap measure, unfortunately, these kinds of patchwork solutions can also leave your team vulnerable to cyber-risk. So how can leaders have access to materials and communicate with each other in a secure way? 

Access in a virtual world is strongest when it lives in the cloud and brings together key functions under one umbrella. Using software that securely manages document storage, video and text communication means all levels of access are protected and streamlined. A recent publication from Stanford takes a deep dive into how leaders need broad access to make fully informed decisions, and we agree. That’s why we built software around the idea of full-featured, streamlined access. 

Cloud Concinnity® makes access simple and protected by putting information and communications sharing under the same security umbrella. 

2. PROCESS:  How must we adapt our processes to the world of remote management?

Changing routines during the best of times is hard. During a crisis is even harder. One of the biggest factors is preserving process control while and adapting to the virtual world. Much of what needs to happen is the same as it was before this crisis — but many of the methods for making it happen must change. The answer is for deliverables to be centralized and documented. Process that lives on a single, secure hub in the cloud.

Process can be a strong anchor for leadership teams. Process on a centralized platform places key steps front and center for everyone who needs to take them, baking efficiency into the way forward. When possible, having software that can automate pieces of that process can go a long way toward keeping the gears of leadership and governance moving — even when the people responsible are spread out.

Cloud Concinnity® controls and drives your key processes via a centralized leadership hub, adding to the umbrella of access. It makes replacing walks down the hall, meetings, spreadsheets and other ad hoc activity with software management tools a piece of cake. Pre-built, customizable workflows and tasks for the management of key activities ensures your team won’t miss a step. You’ll never go back, even after you go back to the office. 

3. OUTCOMES: Do we have a simple way to track and elevate key issues and outcomes?  

Tracking outcomes is harder when everyone is spread out and remote. When everyone was at the office, leaders had the luxury of walking down the hallway and asking for clarification. Now, they need to be able to click through and find out for themselves. Luckily, cloud software is exactly the right tool to do that. But for some reason, there are no other communication and process tools out there that also track results in a simple way. 

Outcomes on a single, at-a-glance dashboard seems like an obvious solution to us. Leaders need to a way to see what is going well, what is going poorly, and deep dive into what needs attention. So why are digital tools not built this way? We don’t know. We only know that we have solved this problem for you. And it won’t drive you crazy anymore. 

Cloud Concinnity® frames your outcome tracking on a single, secure dashboard for at-a-glance and audit-ready data. 

In Conclusion

Access. Process. Outcomes. 

We think software for making mission critical leadership decisions should do everything your leadership team is expected to do. Especially during quarantine.

Access to information, Process certainty, and Outcomes tracking. 

Cloud Concinnity® does what no other software out there will. 

Built by leadership and governance experts for high performance in any situation. Crisis included. 

Discover how Cloud Concinnity® can transform mission critical management & governance for your leadership.

5 Reasons Video Conferencing Apps Can’t Solve Your Virtual Meeting Needs

5 Reasons Video Conferencing Apps Can’t Solve Your Virtual Meeting Needs

3 Minute Read

Video conferencing programs might be fine for your book club or your virtual cocktails, but they are inadequate to handle the complexities of board and GRC management level engagement. And cobbling together video conferencing with other apps to fill in the capability gaps introduces risk, confusion, cost and delays into the whole process.  

The time for a full-featured software platform that puts power and speed in the hands of your leadership is here. We understand your problem. We have incredible software to solve it. We make getting up and and running a piece of cake.

Here’s why a central secure hub for your virtual meeting, information sharing, communications and outcomes tracking is a must-have. And why it requires less time, trouble and cost than you think. 

1. Video Conferencing Alone Isn’t Enough

While video conferencing beats audio-only calls every time, video alone is not enough. A full-featured software platform will support video conferencing with critical meeting management capabilities and a library of important documents so attendees all have access to every important document before, during, and after the call. Sharing, feedback, and collaboration features support critical ongoing communication between attendees as well. Streamlining and speeding up the transparency and follow through for next steps is more critical than ever. Having everything mission critical in a single, secure hub ensures end to end meeting process happens, even when you meet virtually. 

2. A Single Platform Simplifies Security

Cobbling together multiple apps to run meetings introduces both technical and operator error risks. In addition, each of these apps have their own security risks you must manage. With cyber-risk at an all-time high, bulletproof security is critical. A single integrated platform allows you to take control of software settings and sharing protocols to minimize technical and operator error risks. Securing a single platform and keeping up with the right settings is much, much easier when there is only one platform to manage, dramatically reducing the chances for hacking or operator error. Our own Cloud Concinnity® is SOC2 certified — a third-party certification that is the highest level of security certification available. The meeting management, communications, document management and performance tracking capabilities are safe inside our walls.

3. Centralized Communication is Faster

Cobbling together multiple apps also means participants waste time chasing data, communications and action items among an array of applications that don’t talk to each other and that maybe not everyone understands. Having everyone on your leadership team use the same platform to store documents, view analytics, exchange messages, track progress, and host your virtual meetings will streamline everything. A single, secure hub in the cloud beats jumping between a video call, a messaging app, a document app, and an email window every time. Your technology needs to be as integrated and able to reach across silos and departments as these new challenges are.

4. Automation Creates Efficiency

A full-featured software platform will not only run your meeting, it will run the activities before and after it. When actions and alerts are sent from the same platform where documents, meetings, and next steps are hosted, progress is streamlined. Software that keeps track of what needs to happen and when is especially valuable when people are all working remotely. Last minute changes or tasks are no longer a walk down the hallway. Smart software doesn’t care if you and your colleagues are on the same floor or have the same time frame or are on the same work schedule. Smart software puts you in the same virtual workspace, and knows how and when to get you what you need.   

5. A Master Dashboard Puts Everyone on the Same Page

Now more than ever, your team has to keep an eye on the same ball. Every day. In real time. What issues do you need to track as you lead and oversee your organization or mission critical process? How many places does that information live? How often does it change? How do key players know when it changes so they can do their part? A single, secure source for tracking issues and progress “truth” in real time is the answer. At-a-glance metrics make for rapid focus. Smart technology allows us to not only track and measure a multitude of metrics, it hosts and centralizes all the important numbers on one dashboard. 

Cloud Concinnity® powers everything listed above — and more.

Let us help.

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5 Tips for Mastering Virtual Meeting Leadership

5 Tips for Mastering Virtual Meeting Leadership

3 Minute Read

The future of your business depends on mastering virtual meetings. Step one is choosing smart software. Step two is managing the people and process elements of meetings.  

It’s not about “making it work” or “keeping up.” It’s about leveraging the virtual world to lead and govern even better. Here’s how.

1. Completely Rethink Your Agenda

In person meetings have a time luxury that no longer exists. Use time saved for meeting planning and preparing attendees for significant changes in pre, during and post meeting processes. Create tight, time-boxed, role/responsibility clear agendas that focus on dialogue. Cut presentations on matters that can be reviewed in advance out of your agenda. Be very clear about pre-work to all participants. Ensure that everyone in the meeting can view the agenda and all related documents simultaneously. Let tools that centralize and integrate documents, agendas and communications, metrics and deliverables make this easier for all participants. 

2. Don’t Let Technology Remove the Human Touch

Switching from in-person meetings to virtual meetings changes the dynamics, but it doesn’t change who we each are as people. Everyone is going through something right now, and everyone has a story to tell. Everyone is working through stress and anxiety. The way to lead is not to gloss over it, not to over-emphasize it, but to give it a place. Carve out a few minutes at the beginning of the meeting to check in, and be ready for both good and tough news. Speaking from the heart sets the tone and clears the way for everyone’s attention to be on the task at hand. Video conferencing is far better than audio conferencing for keeping the human touch.

3. Be Explicit About Virtual Meeting Roles

Virtual meetings require different roles and skillsets. Assign roles and responsibilities in advance. Confirm with the people taking on those roles beforehand. Designate a facilitator, a note-taker, and a time-keeper. The ability to use technology is now the equivalent of walking into the conference room and sitting down. Make that an explicit expectation. Assign responsibilities and timeframes for getting participants all along the process up to speed. But be realistic about current abilities. Know exactly what support resources your team needs. Get them. The return on investing in resources now to get your team working effectively will be high and the cost of skipping this is lower performance and increased risk.  

4. Short Cut Note Taking and Next Steps

In a virtual meeting, a good technology will offer the capability to share screens, split screens, or in some way display a collective record of what happened at the meeting. Notes and next steps can be shared, viewed, and confirmed by everyone in attendance before the meeting is over. Shared notes need not have every excruciating detail of the meeting. They should make explicit things like next steps and accountability, and be a record of decisions made. Use technology to get quick feedback post meeting, record votes, push and track next steps. Set clear expectations about post meeting roles and responsibilities. Stick to due dates. Use smart tools to control, measure and track key follow up items.  

5. Plan for Glitches

The news is full of stories about operator errors, technology glitches and bad actors crashing video calls. Know your technology and the capabilities of your participants. Meeting chairs and designated administrators must team well to master meeting facilitation in the virtual arena. Use waiting rooms and queueing features to view, vet, and start the meeting with grace and intention. Make sure the meeting host has researched and learned how to use these features well in advance of the call.

Your old normal can be replaced by a better normal. Cloud Concinnity® powers everything listed above — and more. Let us help.

Do you have the smart software solution you need to manage & lead in a crisis?

Cloud Concinnity® is a single, secure hub in the cloud for top of house leaders to centralize, simplify and automate what's mission critical. 

Find out how we can help you.

A Message from the Concinnity Company

Leading in the Time of COVID-19 & Economic Crisis

The impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) has been swift and severe. The actions necessary to slow the spread of the disease bring with them devastating economic consequences. 

Businesses are closing and business spending will drop. The consumer, who accounts for 70% of GDP in the US, has been sent home to face a future unlikely to make them spend while at home. A recession is just the beginning of what we can expect.

The kind of widespread disease we will likely experience is unlike anything that has hit most of the world since the Spanish Flu in 1918. Most economists now forecast unemployment north of 20% in the US, something not seen since 1929. A US deficit north of $3 trillion will be necessary for the country to win a war against an enemy that can’t be seen. 

All of this is forcing businesses to adapt overnight, almost every night. What seemed unthinkable yesterday seems like magically optimistic thinking today. 

There has never been a more important time for those at the top of the house to lead well.

I now spend much of my day gathering information and intelligence, including from investors, boards, and trusted advisors in a variety of industries, venture and finance, learning and advising on companies’ responses to the challenges ahead. It is clear that yesterday’s plan is insufficient to position our companies to withstand what lies ahead. Many companies have realized overnight their need for an efficient way for the top-of-house leadership to communicate, align, and execute mission-critical operations and oversight completely remotely.

Cloud Concinnity® was created to empower top-of-house leaders with smarter software, and that mission feels especially important right now. Our mission hasn’t changed. Cloud Concinnity® was built for times like these.

Why We Need Smart Software for Corporate Crisis Management, Strategy, Planning, Execution, and Communications

Just a few months ago, no one could have foreseen the massive impact the coronavirus would have on the world. But for Concinnity’s years in the making, we saw a pressing need for smarter software for the top of the house to navigate whatever the future throws at it. We knew world-class service would have to be a part of the solution. Our team and our software are here to serve.

Our customer success team takes calls from home on the weekend. Our development team is committed to maintaining the 24/7 uptime we have maintained since our launch. Our staff was already remote-work-capable, so our transition into remote work during social distancing has been seamless. 

This is a time to execute flawlessly like no other. Technology can keep us connected around tasks and to-do lists, and it can also keep us connected around our mission and values. It can make conversation and forward-thinking possible, especially in times of crisis. It can streamline processes when our teams and our thoughts are scattered, and it can provide clarity and transparency when the world is uncertain. In short, smart software helps make space for our best thinking during times of crisis. 

It is also a time to align. Our founding team has 100+ years of combined top-of-house leadership experience. We’ve built businesses, led companies, sat on boards, and navigated good times and bad from boardrooms and war rooms around the world. We know what it takes to lead during a crisis, and we built software that can deliver under pressure.  We offer our thought leadership, in addition to our transformative software, to assist you in the challenges ahead. Know that we are here for you. Call us and let us know how. 

Our countries and our economies will endure this crisis and come out changed on the other side. One big change we see is that top of house leadership teams will understand the need for strong, streamlined, integrated, cloud based communication — not just in a crisis but at all times. 

Stay safe, wash your hands, keep distances, and make room to look ahead. 

Yours in concinnity,

Nancy Falls

Click here to access our Corporate Crisis Management Resources

5 Ways to Make Your Virtual Board Meetings Great

Cloud Concinnity®: The turnkey software solution for your next board meeting and for end to end Board Management

The coronavirus is forcing businesses to adapt overnight. One of the biggest areas affected will be board meetings themselves. For the foreseeable future, these will be virtual. In the midst of the current crisis they undoubtedly will be more frequent. Top of house teams need a way to make them great and a cloud-based way to manage these governance processes end to end. 

With travel interrupted, staff working from home, and every day bringing changes to the new reality of doing business, it’s critical to move now to plan and execute your next board meeting in the cloud. 

Cloud Concinnity® is the turnkey software solution for end-to-end Board Management. Importantly for today’s environment, it was designed for creating, supporting, and implementing every aspect of board meetings online. Unlike any other solution, we had that in mind for you day one.

One shared hub, one shared goal. 

Here’s what Cloud Concinnity® does for you

1. Plan Your Virtual Board Meeting in the Cloud 

With staff working from home indefinitely, you need a central, secure hub to plan your next board meeting. This is not the time to leave mission critical oversight to the vagaries and errors of manual processes. This is not the time to cobble together a solution from multiple tools that aren’t designed to work together and are not secure.  

Cloud Concinnity® not only hosts all meeting materials, but all relevant information and communications. It keeps key players and support staff connected, and does so in a way that stays in compliance with regulatory requirements.

Cloud Concinnity® is designed for cloud planning and collaboration. You can manage alerts for meetings, content, reviews, signatures, and other updates from one dashboard. Roles based permissions keep communication and information flowing while keeping everyone in their lanes. Streamlined access, automated processes, and transparent outcome tracking every step of the way.

2. Run Your Entire Meeting in the Cloud

Hosting  all board materials and support documents (not just an online board book, but all the historical and support documents) is just the beginning of managing effective governance in the new environment. Cloud Concinnity® is your one shared hub, to execute on your one shared goal. Your entire board meeting can now happen in the cloud. 

Cloud Concinnity® supports video conferencing, agenda management, shared document viewing, online voting, and taking live minutes on a single platform, which is exactly the kind of power your virtual board meeting will require. No more ad hoc workarounds to communicate or to share and process sensitive corporate information.  

Real time board meetings, communication and information sharing in a dedicated cloud platform means staying effective in a crisis, not slowing down. 

3. Execute Next Steps Immediately from the Cloud

The next board agenda is going to have a fresh sense of urgency. 

Next steps will need to be centralized, streamlined, and tracked. Again, a cloud tool is the ideal workspace for top of house to make this happen because it is transparent and secure simultaneously. 

Cloud Concinnity® makes notes and next steps immediately transparent to everyone involved, and enables your team to bundle workflows with the documents on a single hub, then track progress. Your notes and next steps will act as action triggers, and the entire team will have visibility into who is responsible for what and how progress is coming along. Push notifications keeps everyone on track and on schedule.

4. Track Outcomes Right in the Cloud

Making outcomes trackable and transparent is more critical than ever. 

Cloud Concinnity®’s board scorecard tracks engagement over time. The company dashboard provides transparency & accountability at a glance. Because everything is centralized in the cloud, the top of house gets unprecedented insight into performance. 

Data shouldn’t hide. A single, cloud based tool builds outcomes into company-wide memory, which keeps momentum moving and top of mind. 

5. Operationalize Best Practice Governance for the Long Term

Cloud Concinnity® Makes Virtual Board Meetings Great, and your next board meeting is fast approaching. We can get you set up overnight for that and for the work to come.

Just turning on a conference call or webinar isn’t what you need for this meeting, or the next, or the long term or for the level of excellence you need.

Cloud based, institutionalized best practice governance is the new imperative for the top of the house. Turnkey Board Management Software is the solution.

The radical shift to remote work will persist long after the Coronavirus is in the rearview mirror. The profound changes in work, governance and risk management demand change for the long term.

The time for a patchwork solution is past.

The urgency of a cloud-based comprehensive system is upon us.

Cloud Concinnity®: The Turnkey Solution

In times of crisis, smart software solves problems — both expected and unexpected.

It should remove the barriers between top of house leaders, put an end to the inefficiency and risks of reinventing the wheel with manual process and workflows and eliminate scrambling for access or a password or wondering if you have the right version or asking someone to send you a document.

Smart software should centralize everything into a single hub, utilize integrated video, audio, and text, all protected with top level security. It should support staff and assistants by enabling the  building of processes once, operationalizing alerts and reminders to keep the board and senior management on the same page while working remotely.

Cloud Concinnity® is a comprehensive, turnkey workspace for top of house teams and mission critical processes. In a world where chaos is the new normal, leaders need to be agile and have the real-time intelligence to do great work.

Our founders have 100+ years of top of house experience between us, from the c-suite to the boardroom. We know what it takes to do great work in tough times. 

We’re ready to help.

Our CTO's Practical Advice on Working Remotely

Chief Technology Officer, The Concinnity Company 

We’ve seen a deluge of “expert” articles from consulting companies and established firms quickly adjusting to remote work. In my experience, these new-comers are the last people you should be listening to as they are making the same mistakes that companies who’ve done this for years can tell you to avoid. 

At TCC we are moving from 80% remote to 100%, so we’ve had a great head start and are happy to give you some practical advice. 

Practical Advice on Working Remote

• My dogs really distrust the Amazon guy, and loud barking is very distracting (much more so than the things in peoples backgrounds). If you get as many packages as we do, go ahead and put the pups somewhere out of earshot before you begin.  (@microsoft teams, @zoom please add a bark detecting - auto-mute feature). This also applies to cats on keyboards. 

• The top complaint of remote workers is that they are never off the clock. When your boss feels that you’re the same distance both on and off hours (just a message or call away!) they don’t hesitate to call. Either embrace the 24 hour work life. If your employee are answering emails / messages at 11pm, you can emphasize how dedicated they are and just accept that they are walking their dogs / doing laundry when you call sometimes. Or be strict and use applications that have ‘office hours’ built in. 

• Create a nonsense area, such as a “water cooler” chat group, in your messaging application where it’s encouraged and expected people will discuss out of work issues or general nonsense. Just because people are working remotely doesn’t mean they should be all business all the time. They need to build relationships and getting off topic is just natural. 

• Does your office enjoy sharing lunch time? With video chat, between the time delay, and not always looking directly at the person you are talking too, people often ask questions while you’re mid-bite. If you’ve ever tried to chew through a mouth full of food, while apologizing to everyone for having a mouth full of food, and also being 2 seconds delayed, it’s really awkward (0 stars, would not recommend). Try doing a shared coffee / drinks half hour instead. We like to start off just talking about which type of tea or 5pm beer everyone is trying at home.

• Get the software you need in place ASAP. If you don’t have messaging, task management and video chat all setup, call us! Remote is what we do, and how we work. 

And finally, here are some other people to learn from who know what’s up:

• Tech: Automattic (creators of WordPress) - A Crash Course in Remote Management

• Journalism: Momsrising.org - Working From Home with Kids

• Design: Invision – Remote Work for Design Teams

10 Steps You Can Take Now to Get Organized and Lead During the Coronavirus Crisis

There has never been a more important time to get organized and lead.

The impact of the Coronavirus has been sudden and far-reaching, and many businesses are not prepared for the long haul that this will be. 

Are you?

Work has moved online. The boardroom is now in the cloud. With work-from-home mandates and corporate travel restrictions in place for the foreseeable future, we are just beginning the work of managing the impact of Coronavirus on our economy and our lives.

Leaders need to guide their response from a single place. 

Cloud Concinnity® is the only comprehensive virtual mission control available that is designed around everything that top of house leadership needs.

Here are 10 Steps You Can Take Now to Get Organized and Lead During the Coronavirus Crisis

1. Embrace Long Term Crisis Management Mode

This is not a few days of travel delay. This is a marathon. This crisis is going to drag on. You need something built for the long haul, and we are just at the beginning. We don’t even know what this will look like as it develops, but we know this is going to hit us all hard. It’s going to ripple, and your team is going to need to get ready.

2. Begin Daily Planning Meetings for Coronavirus Contingency Planning

Your leadership is scattered across the country and likely working from home. The answer is not sporadic, long meetings. The answer is a daily virtual scrum where everyone on your leadership team can join a quick (virtual) morning huddle to explain what they’re working on and share resources, keeping everyone on the same page. 

3. Upgrade Your Leadership’s Software Platform

Dial in meetings are nowhere near enough. You need to see each other. Video conferencing alone will not cut it. You need to be inside a cloud platform that can hold all of your files. Virtual meeting software alone is not enough. You need workflow automation integrated so everyone stays on the same page between meetings. Remember, this is for the long-haul, not for a day or two. And because you’re leadership, you need the highest security protocols in place to protect proprietary information. One of the things that makes Cloud Concinnity® so powerful is that we offer comprehensive and secure document storage inside the same cloud platform as video conferencing, process automation and meeting documentation. You only need one tool. 

4. Get Everything Important Into The Cloud Now

Your leadership should be able to do as good of work from home as when they are in the office. The only way to do that is to get everything mission critical into the cloud, and make it available to everyone on your leadership team. With upgraded software, you can do that.

5. Make Your Virtual Meetings Great

You can’t cancel your board meeting - so what do you do instead? A comprehensive virtual mission control means everyone can be as effective and as present as they would have been in person. All the information they need in front of them. Totally secure. Logged and documented. And in a cloud platform that keeps everyone safe. 

6. Be More Efficient. Period

You don’t have time to not be efficient. Your distributed leadership team is even more distributed, and a crisis doesn’t wait. Using multiple software tools patch-worked together instead of a comprehensive solution means wasting time jumping back and forth between windows, fumbling for login information, and constantly asking each other where a certain file or message was. With Cloud Concinnity®, everything is always in the same place. Right where you need it.

7. Automate as Much Process as Possible

With everyone out of the office, the normal cadence of in-person “reminders” is gone. But you still need to keep your leadership team on track to sign documents, keep meetings, and generally stay on track. And everyone on your team is already stressed and operating in an unfamiliar environment from home. Make your software work for you by offering a comprehensive solution that lets your team automate workflows to reduce repetitive work and give everyone room to focus on strategy and crisis management.

8. Maintain Director Goodwill 

Proactively streamlining work during the crisis and quarantine period will help keep everyone calm and on track. The last thing you need is people squabbling about which version of a document to use, or forgetting the details that used to be routine, or unhappy grumbling that goes unaddressed. Meet early, often, and in a comprehensive way to keep your virtual mission control team on point and happy. And nothing keeps a leadership team happier than not having to scramble for their information.

9. Increase Engagement

While it’s easy to think that working from home or a canceled board meeting means less work and less engagement, this kind of crisis is actually cause for the board and senior leadership to meet more often. Shorter, more frequent meetings in the cloud mean everyone on the team can stay agile and mobile, but still focused from wherever they are. That means better decisions and crisis management. 

10. Learn From The Challenge

We will come out of this stronger than we were before. Leadership teams who root out and fix inefficiencies in order to navigate a crisis will find that there is no need to go back to those inefficiencies down the road when we are through this. Be aware, be nimble, and be ready to change. Learn from the challenge we are all being thrust into and get ready to come out the other side even better at what you do for your organization. 

Cloud Concinnity® is the only comprehensive virtual mission control available that is designed around everything that top of house leadership needs.

It is the solution for leadership teams to who need a way to work together efficiently and effectively to navigate the Coronavirus crisis.

We can get you up and running in 24 hours.

Our software offers a single secure control hub for integrated data, communications and process management.

And we are offering RAPID ONBOARDING for your board and senior leadership teams along with reduced onboarding fees.

It’s Time To Turn On Your Leadership’s Virtual Mission Control.

Or, call us directly.

Smart Software in the Age of the Coronavirus: 5 Reasons to Upgrade Now

The impact of COVID-19 (aka coronavirus) has been swift and severe. 

Governments around the world are scrambling to respond, business and civic leadership struggle to reassure, and last week the stock market took a giant nosedive, losing over $3 trillion in market value. 

At the same time, Zoom Video Communications’ stock has risen dramatically, and Zoom has added 2.22 million monthly active users so far this year — that’s more than the 1.99 million it added during all of 2019.

This statistic points to a powerful, sobering truth: In times of crisis, smart software solves problems — both expected and unexpected.

Smart software means peace of mind and crisis-ready process at the top of the house. In a world where chaos is the new normal, leaders need to be agile and have the real-time intelligence to do great work.

Here’s why NOW is the time for top of house teams to adopt smart software.

1. CRISIS DOESN’T WAIT. In a world where fear can cause massive shifts in the stock market, leaders must be ready to react to these kinds of black swan events at the drop of a hat. Preparing for the unexpected is part of doing business. Whether it is the coronavirus, a stock market drop off, or an internal company crisis, there is always less time to react than you need.

   The people who need to communicate earliest and most often in a crisis are the board and the c-suite. Crisis is when we need agile teams at the top of the house. Oddly, it is the top of house teams who often have the least interconnectedness. It’s an anachronism. A crisis doesn’t wait until you are ready. Smart software is ready when you are.
   

2. TRAVEL IS VULNERABLE. Annual meeting season usually means one thing: travel. But experts project that the Coronavirus will impact all kinds of group gatherings. They are recommending that people prepare for possible school closures, travel disruption, and market disruptions. What is traditionally a gathering of the board in person may need to be, for the first time, a gathering of the board over the web. The norms of business will need to adjust.

   While the Coronavirus scare may feel temporary, this kind of communication challenge — and interruption to our business norms — is only becoming more common. The truth is that as businesses embrace remote work, they are beginning to see travel as less of a luxury and more of an expensive inefficiency that can be problematic for the environment, unreliable, and potentially bad for your health. The future of agile work is in the cloud.
   

3. COMMUNICATION DEMANDS CONTEXT. Remote meetings help minimize the threat to public health by reducing our risk of passing a virus from person to person. Video conferencing feels personal, unlike phone-only conference calls, and can provide a secure connection, unlike email or text. And while distance meetings are a great solution for public health, remote meetings are only part of the solution for business teams.

   The strength of any communication solution is in the context. 

   The real trick is allowing everyone to have all relevant information, integrated data, communications, schedules, and project data with real time updates at their fingertips from any device — whether that is a computer in the office, a smartphone at the airport, or an iPad on the beach! 

   Smart software is that complete secure hub, layering robust communications features on top of remote video conferencing to replace the time, expense and potential risks of travel.
   

4. PROCESS MATTERS. What did you do as the coronavirus crisis began to grow? Did you start to make a mental list of the other key people on your team you needed to talk to? Did you know how to find them quickly and securely? How many people had sensitive conversations about crisis management and board information over text or email that would have been better off through a more secure line of communication?

   Boards, c-suites and top of house teams who have a process for communicating on a dedicated software platform will be more nimble, efficient and reactive in times of crisis like this one. Those who do not plan for this will be left to scramble anew each time.

   For boards and c-suites who spend much of their time on the road and away from each other, building the habit of connecting in a personal way between meetings means building a new way of doing business — and being seamlessly prepared for the next crisis.. 
   

5. REMOTE WORK IS NOT THE FUTURE. IT’S ALREADY HERE. Almost 5 million Americans identify as digital nomads, and HBR identified the “work from anywhere” policy as an emerging trend in business — noting that 43% of American workers have spent at least some time working remotely. Common fears of lower productivity or focus seem unfounded — studies are showing that remote workers are actually more productive. 

   The move toward remote work is happening. It’s about agile work and taking advantage of the ability to work anywhere, anytime. Top of house teams need to be out in front with this, adapting to and leading the way. As offices begin to relax their walls, boards and c-suites that embrace smart software will be leading the way, not playing catch up. 

   Even when this crisis subsides, the reality of remote work as the future of work will continue to grow. 

In Conclusion

Our founders have 100+ years of top of house experience between us. We’ve been there so we know what it takes to do great work.

Cloud Concinnity® is a comprehensive, turn-key workspace for top of house teams and mission critical processes. And because we know crisis doesn’t wait, we can have you up and running in a matter of days. 

If your leadership needs to step up your planning to the potential problems of the coronavirus, call us now. 

It’s not too late. We’re ready to help.

Click here to start the conversation. 

7 Secret Process Weapons for D&O Questionnaire & Proxy Season

D&O Questionnaire and Proxy season is upon us once more.

You may notice a tinge of dread in the air as everyone returns from their holiday travels and picks through their email inboxes. Visions of documents, signatures and checklists dance in their heads — the prospect of late nights and long email chains looming on the horizon.

The good news? 

It doesn’t have to hurt so much. 

There is a solution, and we have it.

Cloud Concinnity® is the secret process weapon for high quality performance.

Smart technology applied to repeatable processes is the secret weapon for this stressful season.

The D&O Questionnaire process doesn’t have to hurt so much. Proxy season need not overwhelm. Annual meeting prep doesn’t have to bring everything else to a grinding halt.

We’ve built a process engine around the needs of top of house executives and board directors. 

Our founding team has over 100 years of collective experience in the boardroom and C-suite, both serving and advising, so we are more than a little familiar with the anxieties of the season. 

Top of house productivity requires tools tailored to executive leaders.

With these secret weapons, your time is well spent where you make your greatest contributions: shaping the story of your company to the world.

Here’s what that looks like.

7 Secret Process Weapons for D&O Questionnaire & Proxy Season

1. Centralize with an Everything Hub

Imagine how much more quickly things could come together if all of the documents and their related communications, signatures and due dates were securely stored together in one place, easily accessible on any device, anytime. What are you going to do with all that free time?

2. Simplify & Empower Your D&O Questionnaire

Cloud Concinnity® stores all of your D&O information from last year, so your Directors and Executives can simply update it as needed. Now you can prepare proxy disclosures on director credentials, independence and any related party transactions seamlessly — without chasing everyone down.

3. Automate Proxy Preparation

Cloud Concinnity® comes with a starter bundle of pre-configured “Proxy Material Preparation” processes so you’re ready to go on day one. Dates, deadlines and schedules help streamline the predictable work, and custom workflows make it simple to adapt as-you-go, no matter what your company’s processes require.

4. Streamline your Annual Meeting Needs

Cloud Concinnity® comes pre-loaded with timeframes and action steps built on top of annual meeting best practices. No more wondering whether there is a better method. There is. And we built it. Nothing is forgotten. Everything is streamlined.

5. Meet SEC Compliance Requirements In Advance

We build your SEC regulatory calendar and assistance for meeting your disclosure requirements right into the tool. Instead of scrambling for specifics at the last minute, you’ll have everything ready to go well in advance.

6. Bulletproof Security

Cloud Concinnity® is SOC2 certified, meaning anything you do inside our software is protected by the most secure software standards in the world. You determine who can access materials, so you can limit conversations to those with the need to know, even have counsel conduct attorney-client privileged communications, when needed. Speak freely about sensitive topics with peace of mind you’ll never get on email, text or other tools.

7. Build Strong Habits

When board directors and executives have their communication muscles in shape, firing off quick messages to your trusted inner circle becomes a superpower. What feels overwhelming can be dealt with swiftly and efficiently, keeping anxiety low and allowing for fast action.

In Conclusion

The D&O Questionnaire process doesn’t have to hurt so much. Proxy season doesn’t have to induce panic. Annual meeting preparation doesn’t have to bring everything else to a grinding halt.

Top of house productivity requires top of house tools. 

Process is the secret weapon of high performance. 

Let smart technology applied to repeatable processes be your secret weapon this season.

Click here to learn more about how CC helps with D&O and Proxy Season.

3 Imperatives for Leveraging Technology in 2020

While 2020 still conjures up images of flying cars and robot maids, it’s not some far off concept anymore. It’s right around the corner. Cars may not fly (yet) but technology is powerfully making business life easier. 

2020 is the time to bring the power of technology into your C-suite to transform mission critical processes. It’s one of the most powerful things you can do to ensure performance against 2020 deliverables.

Here are 3 ways to take full advantage of today’s smarter technology for your mission-critical processes in 2020.

Ditch your Communication Friction.

Friction is fractured communication. Jumping from chat to email to your phone to file storage and back again — just to get your work done. Collaboration is challenge enough in this age of hacking and cyber-risk, and old channels are simply not suited for sensitive, high-level conversations. 

Technology should make things easier, not more confusing.

Timely and secure communication is essential for effective delivery of your mission critical agenda. Smarter technology, like Cloud Concinnity®, can eliminate communication friction.  It puts things like texts, documents, shared tasks and metrics in one place and pairs that ease with bullet-proof SOC 2 security.  

Invest now in smart technology to elevate effective leadership communications around your most important 2020 initiatives.

Invite Automation to the Table.

Speed and specificity is what makes leading work. Strategy points the boat, but process moves it forward. Even with an assistant keeping track of everything or turning the gears behind the scenes, the details and mundane logistics of process and scheduling can gum up the gears. Automating what’s repeated and routine is the next level, freeing up brain power to focus on growth and progress, for executives and assistants both.

Targeted automation will transform your efficiency at the top of house.

Smarter technology like Cloud Concinnity® will coordinate alerts and timelines behind the scenes, saving everyone hours of overlapping double-checks. Complicated internal processes like strategic growth initiatives, regulatory compliance, risk management and governance management can be streamlined by connecting the key players on a dedicated, secure platform. 

Your 2020 depends on consistent timely execution. Without smart technology you leave opportunity on the table and success at risk.  

Join the best leadership teams who’ve discovered that process has never been so dialed in.

Bring your Data Out of Hiding

If your key metrics and deliverables are not front and center every day at a glance, you are risking failed 2020 objectives.

More often than not, the reason you don’t have a clear idea of those numbers is because of a lag in how that information is tracked and displayed, not because that information doesn’t exist.

Cloud Concinnity® uses smarter technology to consolidate KPI’s in a way that makes the complex simple and the convoluted elegant. It’s about integrating secure transparency where it can actually make a difference.

Facilitating a laser focus on data and metrics is how smart technology changes the game. Imagine the impact on accountability if your leadership had a simple, timely way to see high level KPI numbers on a single, secure dashboard.

Imagine 2020 results delivered.

In Conclusion

When it comes to leveraging smarter technology for your mission-critical processes, 2020 is the year to make it happen. 

In a world where chaos is the new normal, smarter technology makes leaders more agile, and agile leaders drive higher performance and better governance. Smarter technology and real-time intelligence elevates performance, drives agility, and creates the freedom to think.

2020 is the time for your team to level up. If you want more information on how your team can level up in 2020, let’s start the conversation. 

3 Reasons Why You Need Smarter Technology to Survive & Thrive with a Corporate Integrity Agreement

Most often, news of a Corporate Integrity Agreement (CIA) feels like a dark cloud descending over the near-term future. Especially for those who are responsible for fulfilling the obligations. 

But in truth, a CIA is a new beginning. 

If you’re like most companies, your existing technology infrastructure is nowhere near ready to handle the increase in documentation, report generation or new communication expectations. You will need to automate as much as possible. 

CIA implementation is the perfect moment to build up your internal compliance processes. Successful completion of a CIA’s requirements demonstrates to the world that you have the government’s seal of approval on how you manage healthcare regulatory activity. 

Bottom line? Creating and embedding the structure and process required for a CIA sets your organization for long-term success. 

And the best way to build that structure is with the smarter technology of Cloud Concinnity®. 

Here’s why.

Data Cannot Hide

Implementing a CIA means your organization will need to create and maintain documentation of the seven elements that contribute to the effectiveness of a Corporate Compliance Program. And you’ll need to create and document specific CIA requirements related to those elements, conduct additional processes that require coordination and consistency, and submit certifications of compliance from one or more leadership teams, including a board level compliance committee, not to mention implementation and annual reports to OIG. 

Existing technology solutions are simply not configured to handle the complex web of high level conversations that will need to happen. Suddenly everyone will need to exchange and share sensitive information at a pace and volume never before seen. Whatever tools led up to the CIA, it’s time to put them out to pasture. Smarter technology is truly the only way to provide granular control over document sharing and oversight reporting with bullet-proof security protocols that function seamlessly for 24/7, on-the-go executives and compliance professionals who are working at all hours around the world. 

Process Should Empower

You’re about to need more overlapping processes than you ever thought possible. There is simply too much work to handle with paper and pen and the occasional spreadsheet. Too many organizations try to lean on the existing compliance program or other departmental processes. What got you here won’t get you much farther. 

Process must empower, not hinder. 

Smart, agile technology is the only way to simplify, centralize and automate the range of complex execution and oversight steps involved in your more robust compliance program. For example, activity triggers for standard, continuing compliance program tasks and for  the new crop of sequential CIA tasks and deadlines will keep everyone aligned, coordinated and engaged in a way that paper and pen never could. Automated precision workflows and tasks supported by industry-leading communication security and document storage mean a team can keep pace with the rapid increase in monitoring and reporting demands.

Compliance Must be Creative with Challenge

While compliance has a reputation for being a bureaucratic burden, it is also a catalyst for creative growth and a chance to proactively organize up. The fact that every step of your CIA and compliance journey will need to be verified, documented, and archived means that people, processes and systems will need to get more robust and more efficient at the same time. The kind of communication and out of the box thinking that makes a compliance program work will challenge your compliance team to learn, grow and get creative. 

It’s overwhelming. Unless your team gets creative. 

Finding smart software that can handle the digital logistics means that the people on your team have room to discover a new way of doing compliant business. After implementing your CIA and at the same time adding new people, processes and technologies, you’ll have already upgraded your team and resources, proving that your compliance program is first class and ready to handle any new business initiatives or growth. 

In Conclusion

What you need is a centralized, streamlined, secure CIA implementation vehicle that simultaneously upgrades your regulatory compliance infrastructure. 

And that’s what we’ve built. 

A well-oiled, SOC2 certified platform custom-built for the emerging needs of top of house leaders in a regulated business world. 

If you’re ready to see how smarter software can implement your Corporate Integrity Agreement and also transform your corporate compliance program, reach out to our team and explore your options. We love this stuff!

Why Better Technology Means Better ESG Disclosures

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles are fast becoming required criteria in a company’s corporate story.

Yesterday’s lip service to corporate responsibility efforts and token statements about environmental and financial sustainability are no substitute for today’s call for an analysis of real ESG metrics and reports. Investors increasingly expect companies to explain the drivers of their success, including the key performance indicators of success, mitigation of any perceived risks and some measurement of the sustainability of the factors that drive success. Inasmuch as purpose and culture are drivers of sustainability, ESG measures the value of a company seen through the lens of its values.

Investment firms like Black Rock, State Street, and Vanguard have taken a leadership role in articulating the relationship between ESG and corporate success; for that reason they have led the call for more robust ESG disclosures. Business Roundtable has broadened the purpose of a corporation to include “embracing sustainable practices.” It’s clear that every business needs to create a strong ESG story.

And the only way to tell a good ESG story is with great ESG data.

How can better technology create better ESG disclosures?

1. Data Shouldn’t Hide

Data wants to be free, and with smarter technology, it can be looked at in real time, all the time. For the evolving awareness of ESG data, this is a watershed moment.

A data-centric, data-focused, and data-transparent company has a very real advantage over its competitors, especially in these early, “wild west” days of ESG reporting.

And better data starts with with better communication between the top of house.

The top of house must rally around key questions like:

• What is the current process around creating your ESG disclosure?

• How does your website give out that information and how do you present it?

• What do your investors want to know in the financial disclosure about ESG?

Smarter technology empowers the top of house to have these conversations in a safe, secure forum where everyone who needs to share information can do so without fear of internal miscommunications or hackers from the outside.

Access to the right information means better communication and more collaboration on the ESG story — something that can’t happen without smarter technology.

2. There is Power in the Process

Smarter process is the next secret to telling a powerful ESG disclosure story.

Because good ESG metrics require coordination between a complex network of overlapping internal departments and, ultimately, input from the board, the C-suite, and executives at every level, teams need strong workflows to move the right information through the right channels. This cannot happen efficiently without technology, and ideally automated workflows — there are simply too many people and too many moving parts involved to keep up by hand.

Streamlined processes that lean into automation, workflow technology, and collaboration are the pillars of powerful coordination, transparency, and creativity that a strong ESG story demands.

3. You Can’t Argue With Proof

ESG metrics may be in their infancy, but documentation is a timeless way to prove a point. Whether using the SASB Materiality Map or some other metric matrix, good data doesn’t lie.

Your ESG story will do well to weave documentation and proof into the foundation of how you tell your company story. GreenBiz tells us that to build the foundation for a strong ESG story that aligns with your brand, begin by refreshing your sustainability report, committing to ongoing communication, and engaging external influencers. 

We couldn’t agree more.

Smarter technology is what gives you the ability to document compliance along the way.

Top of house voices need to coordinate from the beginning so that all of this data is aligned with investor, boardroom, and executive goals. The ESG story must be a united story.

In Conclusion

When it comes to telling a strong ESG story, making sure the data doesn’t hide, streamlining communication and information gathering processes, and prioritizing digital documentation all mean your ESG story will be a strong one. And the importance of telling that ESG story is only growing.

3 Reasons Why Risk Management Needs Smarter Technology

Enterprise Risk Management continues to evolve and become ever-more complex. Realities like increasing government regulation, looming cyber-risk, and the new unknowns of digital and marketplace disruption demand that boards and C-suites take a more proactive role in risk management.

But as the need for better, more informed risk management skyrockets, technology solutions struggle to keep up. To deliver risk management and oversight well in today’s business environment, what we need is smarter technology.

Here’s why:

1. Growing Oversight Complexity

After decades of evolving regulatory reforms that started in the ’80s and new levels of risk awareness growing out of the 2008 financial crisis — not to mention the unknowns of cyber-risk — the risk management oversight imperative is more complex than ever, requiring ever more time and insight to do well.

As Nitish Idnani of Deloitte points out in WSJ, technology is both a cause of disruption and one of the remedies. He says,

“…it's important that leadership formally examine the effects of technology changes on operational risk profiles and manage those impacts…” Monitoring this interaction often demonstrates both internally and externally—to regulators and shareholders—that the C-suite and board have engaged in providing sufficient oversight.”

Smarter technology is the only way for leadership to effectively manage this enterprise-wide risk oversight, with the C-suite managing day-to-day strategy and the board providing supportive oversight, ensuring that all necessary information and communication both organized and tracked.

2. The Emerging Collaboration Imperative

First, boards added risk committees. Then, boards spread the risk conversation across every committee. Now, it’s clear that risk management needs to be on everyone’s plate. It’s also clear that there is no single expert.

As Derick Hughes of Ethical Boardroom points out in his examination of risk oversight trends, today’s risk management requires collaboration between CEOs and board members.

“CEOs will be working more with boards not only to create and generate value for investors but also to protect value by implementing effective risk management procedures and setting up risk committees and processes as required. Investors in particular are looking for risk management with regards to managing volatility of earnings of companies.”

We need the board and executives to collaborate around identifying and assessing risks while working alongside subject-matter experts who can examine challenges with an eye toward prevention. This means coordination between the board and anyone in the company responsible for risk oversight or management, as well as internal coordination between board committees and their departmental counterparts in the company.

How can a complex and layered conversation like this happen best? On a smart technology platform that is highly secure, easily documented, and custom-designed for success. It is far too important to be left to a patchwork solution or public channels that will never be secure enough.

3. The Measurement Mandate

In a rapidly changing business environment, keeping risk front and center in an easy-to-understand format is critical. At the same time, regulators want more detailed data and investors are are including risk management in ESG metrics they use to make investment decisions.

Daniel Moore, Chief Risk Officer at Scotiabank, points out in a recent interview with McKinsey about effective anti-money laundering in banking, that part of the solution is better technology that has the capability to facilitate the communication and measurement, which then helps with understanding, implementation, or potential litigation.

Moore offers:

“Every form of risk, including [Anti-Money Laundering], should have KRIs (Key Risk Indicators) to assess the inherent risk, the mitigators, and the residual risk…

Communication and relationships are important in whatever jurisdiction you’re operating in—relationships with the regulator, bringing them along on the journey. In many jurisdictions, including the US, we’ve seen a shift in regulatory expectations where they are more open to a focus on the use of analytics to produce better outcomes.”

The interconnected needs of a range of stakeholders that includes the board, executive teams, regulators and investors demands an integrated solution. The answer is smart software with real-time documentation and communication that translates seamlessly to metrics, and all of that information needs to be both comprehensive and easy to splice for a wide variety of uses.

In Conclusion

Today’s risk management requires more engagement and oversight from the top, deeper collaboration between staff, management and boards, and meaningful measurement. The only way to get this is with smarter technology that goes far beyond the board portal, and even beyond most GRC or ERM softwares on the market.

Cloud Concinnity® is designed to meet just such challenges. And the subject matter experts who designed it built it to be custom configurable to the specifics of each enterprise. It is the most secure way forward for every business ready to do what it takes. That’s what smart technology can do. Demand it for your enterprise and rest easier.

How Cloud Concinnity® Minimizes Litigation Risk

A funny thing happens whenever we show Cloud Concinnity® to sophisticated board members.

They fall in love with the freedom it gives them to have earlier and unrestricted access to board material, to message other board members on particular topics, and to better track the thread of conversations since they are grouped around the work being performed.

But if those board members have ever been on a board that has been sued they ask - in horrified tones – "Doesn’t documentation of what we’ve done and said create additional discoverable documentation?”

The short and of course lawyerly answer is, “It depends.”

A better question is, “If technology does create more discoverable documentation, how might we organize our work so that it’s a good thing?”

The digital transformation is upon us, and it ultimately creates more documentation of words and actions. In this climate, boards need to be leaders in taking advantage of newer, disruptive (in a good way) technologies as part of adjusting to the atmosphere of increasing change.

Counsel’s thinking must adjust to the new normals created by technical advances. While respecting and encouraging communication as critical to the deliberative process, we should also recognize the advantages technology provides when the right processes are implemented and board decisions are effectively and appropriately documented.

Here’s how.

How Cloud Concinnity® Increases Board Communication & Minimizes Board Litigation Risk

1. Putting Risk in Context

Cloud Concinnity provides board members with a secure messaging channel to avoid the perils of using their own unencrypted email systems when discussing board business with the company or with other board members. A secure messaging channel’s benefits outweigh its risks. Messaging allows immediate reactions to fast-paced activities. It encourages board engagement; directors can interact with each other and with management in between meetings as they work together in the secure Cloud Concinnity workspace.

But veterans of litigation caution clients that very little good happens in casual communications like emails and texts; they often contain “smoking guns” that inevitably lead to defensible cases being settled. Often comments taken out of context appear extremely damaging. The defense has to work hard to neutralize such “sound bites”.

An example perhaps silly, but illustrative, is an email that says, “the chair is uncomfortable”. While potentially devastating in litigation about the board's approval of a transaction, that same comment is entirely innocuous in the context of ordering furniture for the boardroom.

Because Cloud Concinnity provides a single board communication hub, discovery risk is contained within the context of relevant conversations; all of the messaging from board members that would otherwise occur on insecure email systems now happens, instead, in a single, secure workspace. Because conversations are focused on the work at hand, context is provided, and participants are less likely to dash off unthoughtful comments.

Cloud Concinnity’s enhanced ability to document the board’s activities protects board members from personal liability. Cloud Concinnity both facilitates and documents that the board has carried out its legally required duties; all of the facts, relevant documents and actions are on Cloud Concinnity. Extraneous emails, texts, or other non-board-related communications that could be open to discovery in litigation that explores individual member conduct are less likely to be required if a board uses Cloud Concinnity properly, as the secure repository for all activity related to board member performance.

2. Clarifying Litigation Discovery

Board member conduct becomes a topic of “discovery” in 2 main contexts. The most common is in derivative shareholder litigation, where the company’s stock has lost value and the shareholders sue on behalf of the company’s interest to hold board members personally liable for breaching their fiduciary duties of loyalty or of due care to the company.

The less common, but more concerning, is where the board’s conduct is being investigated as part of a governmental inquiry into company conduct. In either of those situations, the best course is to keep the inquiry focused on the most relevant, primary source of company and board information - Cloud Concinnity.

In the first instance, if the issue at hand is the extent of board oversight or whether the board exercised appropriate business judgment when it decided something material, the best record of what the board knew, what documents directors reviewed, what meetings were held and what conversations took place, those are best evidenced by the complete record, available on Cloud Concinnity.

The wider afield discovery goes the more chance of finding some comment that doesn’t have an obvious explanation, and the greater the chance of opening doors that should stay closed. In those situations where a plaintiff or a government agency would seek discovery of relevant communications, the company and board members have a very strong argument that there is no reason to turn over board members’ private emails or texts, thereby avoiding the exposure of private conversations and minimizing the expense of legal review.

Cloud Concinnity corrals all board-related documents and conversation into one place, which should help on two fronts; it’s more secure from data breaches, and it could prevent additional, non-relevant discovery of extraneous emails that directors sent from their own separate email accounts. Boards that use Cloud Concinnity will be safer overall in litigation.

They will gain a strong defensive position that, barring exceptional circumstances, discovery of the board’s communications with each other and with the company should be limited to company emails and Cloud Concinnity. Such limitation will significantly lower risk and the legal expense of reviewing reams of non-relevant emails and documents.

3. Wrapping Day to Day Work in Best Practices

Cloud Concinnity functions as both a sword and a shield. It is a sword, because Cloud Concinnity provides board processes (workflows) that build in best governance practices. It is a shield because Cloud Concinnity can provide the company with the proof those best practices were done. This makes any lititgation brought more easily dismissed or summary judgment more easily obtained.

The proof is in the documented activities accomplished in the workflows; these easily establish that the board met its legal responsibilities, i.e., it appropriately exercised its business judgment in making material decisions, it carried out oversight responsibilities, and that it complied with SEC governance and other legal requirements. The proof is easily available, accessible and easily produced with Cloud Concinnity - saving effort and resources.

4. Managing The New Era of Messaging

To go back to the first topic discussed, does Cloud Concinnity create more risk because more conversations are documented there than now would otherwise occur? More messaging does not necessarily carry any more or less risk than any other form of communication. If a board messages something indiscrete, whether in a chat or in personal email, or even just said out loud, it may be discovered. There is very little that stays secret these days, and technology can’t cure stupid (although we are working on it!).

We currently advise our clients to train Cloud Concinnity users, particularly board members, to be aware that what they message could be saved, what they do on the Cloud Concinnity work platform is presumed to be board and company related, so thoughtful behavior is always best. Cloud Concinnity integrates the way directors work with management and with each other; integrated access, process and outcome management are maximized using messaging and other innovative technologies. The result? a more engaged, more effective and safer board experience.

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Heidi Allen is Co-founder and Chief Development + Legal Officer of The Concinnity Company. Former Assistant US Attorney. 25+ years experience advising executive teams & boards of directors about managing risk. Former GC and Corporate Secretary of public healthcare company. Graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers School of Law.

Welcome Michael D'Amico, The Concinnity Company's new Director of Business Development

We are thrilled to welcome Michael D’Amico as The Concinnity Company’s new Director of Business Development. Michael joins Concinnity from Donnelley Financial where he served as a Director in the Global Capital Markets vertical for over 10 years, leading strategic business development primarily in the Southeast.

Prior to DFIN, Michael served in operations, sales and management capacities at Bowne & Co. He brings a record of success and expertise in expanding revenue, building crucial relationships, and structuring innovative solutions for companies operating at the highest levels of global business.

Nancy Falls, Concinnity Company CEO, said:

“Hiring Michael brings tremendous capacity to our team and our ability to serve the unique needs of directors and officers in complex organizations with our
game changing software. We are extremely
happy to have him on board.”

David Rue, Concinnity Company CRO, added:

“I’m absolutely thrilled to welcome Michael to The Concinnity Company. He has a tremendous reputation for innovation and an intense focus on customer service. He has distinguished himself as a pioneer in technologies in service to his public company and mutual fund clients. Michael and I worked together for almost 20 years and it’s an honor for me to be working with him again.” — David Rue, Chief Revenue Officer

We sat down with Michael to hear about his new role

What are you looking forward to about joining The Concinnity team?

What The Concinnity Company is doing to reshape this industry is exciting, and that is incredibly motivating. The intensity and intelligence behind what Cloud Concinnity® represents is contagious, and you can see how the passion for the work lights up everyone’s faces in the office. I am looking forward to being able to work in a place where everyone on the team does what it takes to get the job done and has fun doing it. It was easy to say yes when I got the opportunity to join the team.

What do you love about working with leaders in the C-Suite?

I love working with smart, innovative people. My entire career has been working with the C-suite in all kinds of industries, and I love seeing people take a need, fulfill it, and figure out a way to deploy that solution throughout the company.

One of the things that attracted me most to Cloud Concinnity® is its power to simplify and drive processes across the entire organization, which is difficult to come by without intelligent software. It’s exciting to be part of helping leaders save time and money and avoid risk by deploying smart technology to accomplish ambitious goals. Being able to simplify and automate critical processes quarter after quarter is a beautiful thing.

What draws you to the technology behind Cloud Concinnity®?

The Cloud Concinnity Company is bringing valuable enhancements to how management board rooms and advisors approach company performance, corporate governance and shareholder value. We have an elegant technology that is easy to use and fully scalable to service the challenges that senior leadership teams and the board room face regularly.

Joining the Concinnity team was a no brainer. I am so grateful to be working with old friends as well as an extremely talented team of professionals. I look forward to spreading the word, growing our business and ultimately helping our customers.

How are you enjoying your return to Nashville?

I split my time now between Atlanta and Nashville, and I have a deep love for both cities. I remember living in Nashville when the city first started growing into what it is now, and it is amazing to come back as part of The Concinnity Company team. I moved to Atlanta a while back with my family, which is a fantastic city as well, so I am lucky enough to be part of two great areas. I love being part of the energy and diversity of the city, and I love being able to be part of Atlanta and Nashville as they both continue to grow.

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Read the official press release about Michael D’Amico's appointment to The Concinnity Company.

Interested in following Michael’s journey at The Concinnity Company? Subscribe to our newsletter today!

5 Biases That Hold Boards Back

In today’s business world, chaos often feels like the new normal. To stay on top of it all, growth and change are not optional — they need to be the focus of an ongoing conversation for every board of directors.

Too often we see stale, stagnating biases hold boards back from taking new opportunities by the horns and turning the page. Here are 5 of those biases every board director can look for to get that conversation started.

1. Defend & Extend Mentality. When a board focuses too closely on defending and extending the “core” business strategy of the company, the world will pass you by. While taking care of the core is always a good idea, it should be in the DNA of every board director to offer an outside perspective, be a disruptive thinker, and act as a voice for change. Think about the directors on your board — how often is someone bringing up new, disruptive ideas? How many of your conversations are anticipating where your industry will be years down the line?

2. Traditionalism. The first time someone on your board justifies a process or an action step with “…Because we’ve always done it this way,” you can be sure that everyone needs to take a step back and reassess. While there is nothing wrong with preserving tradition or holding onto processes and rituals that work, a problem arises when the board defaults to believing that things are better because they are traditions. In a world evolving as rapidly as ours, not every tradition can endure. Is your board holding onto any traditions (like board books or committee processes) that used to work but need to be updated?

3. Baby Boomer. This one is a media favorite that can be easy to exaggerate, but the bias here can be insidious. When boomers believe (consciously or subconsciously) that they and other Boomers know best, the board is in some trouble. Today’s boards need a diversity of opinion to thrive — and that means across gender, race, and age. Look around your board — is everyone a Baby Boomer? If so, it’s time to start the hard conversations.

4. Technophobia. People fear technology for many reasons. Adopting new tech can be challenging, especially for those who spent the first 20 years of a career without it. It means investing time into a new system, taking many board directors out of their comfort zone at a time in their careers when they are used to being experts. Some people are (rightly) wary of ever-evolving cyber-risk. But at this point in business, avoiding tech puts any team at a gigantic disadvantage, severely limiting the options of boards who need to be agile in the face of business chaos. Tech has been the enabler of product transformation, marketing opportunities, data analysis and process innovation. An understanding of its possibilities is critical for strategic thinking. Look at how your board does business — is it utilizing tech wherever it can? Or is it resisting new tools that are revolutionizing what today’s leaders can do?

5. Board Stagnation. Everyone wants to hold on to a good gig and do their part, but being afraid of rotating in new people and refreshing a board’s makeup is the beginning of decay. Forgetting to prioritize fresh perspectives and new blood can creep up on even the best teams. The solution is implementing a regular review process and considering term limits for board directors. Even if you’re not bringing in new board directors every year, you can bring in outside experts or coaches to stir the pot. Think about the last few years on your board — has much changed? And if not, what can you do to drive what’s next?

These are not the only biases that can drag on a board, but they are prime examples of the kind of thinking that can hold a company back. We all have things to uncover about ourselves and our teams that are hindering our business growth. The point is not to ask yourself which of these are holding your board or company back — the point is to have an ongoing conversation among your leadership about what can be done to keep everyone moving forward and not get caught in the inertia of bias.

Cloud Concinnity® is a powerful tool for transcending these biases. It is a software platform custom built for today’s connected leaders, who must facilitate the complex processes required to manage and govern today’s companies. It makes real change possible by providing a forum for important conversations. It brings together the best of process management tools, board management software, team collaboration and GRC software into one central, simple, secure hub.

In a world where chaos is the new normal, Cloud Concinnity® gives boards, c-suites, and investors the power to be as agile as they need to be. Click here to learn more about how the right tool can help your team transcend hidden bias and finally start having the important conversations.

5 Reasons Why Your General Counsel Will Love Cloud Concinnity®

3 minute read

As the role of the General Counsel evolves, the technology needs of GCs evolve as well. It is no longer enough to weigh in when the business team identifies the need for contractual, compliance or regulatory assistance; a GC must be informed, proactive and a driving force behind critical conversations.

We know that the earlier a GC gets involved in a project, the better the likelihood of avoiding legal repercussions. And we also know that in order to be counselors in the truest sense of the term, GCs need to offer innovative strategies that legally support the business goals. Indeed, savvy legal advice is critical business acumen.

Here is why your Legal Team will love Cloud Concinnity®.

1. Discovery Prepared. Keeping up with regulatory requirements and corporate compliance, let alone preventing and managing litigation, is a complex, consuming and resource-demanding task. That’s why we’ve automated documentation of regulatory compliance in Cloud Concinnity®. Instead of having to gather records from disparate email or messaging accounts and calendars, every task accomplished, every meeting and message on topic is automatically logged in a searchable database. When you need to demonstrate compliance with regulatory or litigation duties of care, it’s where you can easily find and produce it. When you need to prove that your board has exercised its fiduciary duties in the face of potential litigation, the records are there.

2. Simplified Oversight. We prioritize and simplify oversight. Your board and your company’s senior leaders need to discuss governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) & boardroom matters at a high level, with the reassurance that they have the information they need, when they need it. Our ability to automate workflows that both conduct and document the oversight of GRC activities enables the board to oversee management’s reporting systems that spot anomalies and red flags. There is no other tool out there designed specifically for these needs: secure, documented and simple. With Cloud Concinnity®, GCs and other senior users monitor mission-critical activities and communications on a single dashboard, fed by data sources of your choosing. No more silent risk creeping up when you least expect it.

3. Automated Processes. Certain seasons of the year mean sleepless nights and stressful weekends for the entire executive team, but especially the legal team. So we designed Cloud Concinnity® to make it easy to get all those whose participation is needed on the same page about key filing dates for regulatory compliance and enterprise risk management. Work that can be automated is made easier. Rather than spending hundreds of hours manually producing and managing tasks, our software transforms checklists and spreadsheets into automated workflows. You can reliably simplify the monumental task of coordinating and obtaining everything you need from everyone in the company on schedule. This will free up swaths of time and mental energy so you can focus on substance, rather than rushing to meet due dates every year.

4. Proactive Prevention. GCs have historically been the “defenders in chief,” and that role will of course continue to be as important as it has ever been. But in today’s legal climate, getting out in front of risk is the way to win. Because Cloud Concinnity® is designed for high level conversations, it is a powerful tool to create the tone at the top, which will drive the prioritization of compliance throughout. Setting the bar for ethical and legal compliance, and initiating important risk conversations that are months or years ahead of others in your marketplace is much easier when there is a tool that exists for just such conversations. The habit of high level conversations means more team agreement and better proactive communication around identifying and neutralizing risks.

5. A Place for Culture. Considerations about having a healthy corporate culture have never been more critical — even when they are not popular. And for better or worse, it often falls to GCs to bring up thorny topics. Conversations about issues like sustainability, #MeToo, trade policy and diversity have always been important, but in today’s climate, senior leaders ignore or minimize them at their peril. Again, creating a place where those conversations can be ongoing rather than periodic, and can make room for all voices over a period of time means that those conversations can evolve and make room for the research and interactions they truly need. Corporate culture, the company’s reputation, and things that may be “legal” but not advisable in light of stakeholder interests all find a home here as well.

As GCs and legal teams become more visible and influential with the business leadership, we are proud to provide a technology that powers real change. If your senior leadership team is ready to step into discovery preparedness, simplified oversight, proactive prevention and better conversations about culture, we’d love to hear from you.

Click here to send our co-founder and CLO Heidi Allen an email and hear about why she has made Cloud Concinnity® her mission, or click here to watch a brief overview of Cloud Concinnity®.

How to Discover Your Board’s Hidden Strengths & Weaknesses

Building a high performance board begins with understanding what skills your board is strong in today and what skills gaps you need to fill tomorrow. Like Goldilocks searched for juuuuust the right porridge, every board must search for just the right director makeup. Right size, right composition, and right structure support boardroom harmony. Wrong size, composition, or structure can mean boardroom breakdown.

While finding that perfect boardroom magic will always involve some intangibles, we believe there is a way to quantify the foundation for success. There is a code that can be cracked based on information you can put on paper.

The key is to utilize a board skills matrix.

Utilizing the Board Skills Matrix

We look at functional skills, core competencies, and other critical criteria, assessing each board member to get a sense of the board’s overall skillset. Once quantified, we can understand where the board as a whole is strong versus where there are skillset gaps and start to create a long-term plan.

With this information, we can be more precise in risk management and crisis planning, better allocate resources between meetings, and understand what we are looking for in new board directors down the line.

Here is a sample of what a board matrix might look like:

We invite you to take the board matrix challenge and see what you learn about the strengths and weaknesses of your board.

This is an example of the kind of best-practices-thinking we build into the DNA of Cloud Concinnity®, and we hope it jumpstarts a fresh way to understand the potential of your board.

You are welcome to download our matrix spreadsheet to use for your own board, or to use as a model for creating your own matrix. if you would like access to the linked sheet, simply request access from our administrator when you are on the linked spreadsheet. If you cannot access this sheet or want a different version, contact us for more details.

Click here for an introduction into what Cloud Concinnity can do for your board.

6 Ways to Transform Your Annual Meeting Process

Process is powerful.

Year after year and boardroom after boardroom, we see that smart, repeatable processes are what separate great leadership teams from the good ones.

And at no other time of the year is that more obvious than annual meeting time.

Every spring brings week after week of documents, research, signatures, and checklists that zap time, money, and resources from administrative personnel. For Board Secretaries, GC’s, CFOs and their teams, it is a season of late nights, countless emails, and chasing executives down to dot the required “i’s” and cross the required “t’s.”

But it doesn’t have to be so hard.

Here are 6 Ways Cloud Concinnity® can Transform the Annual Meeting Process

1. Slash the time spent on outreach by hosting everyone’s documents and all related communications in one place. Imagine how much more easily and quickly things could come together if all of the documents and their related communications, signatures and due dates were securely stored together in the cloud and easily accessible. No more email inboxes. No more text messages. No more voicemails. No more misunderstandings. It’s all there, every time you log in.
   

2. Simply update information (like the D&O Questionnaire) rather than starting over every year. Instead of spending hours hunting people down to fill out forms and information that everyone is too busy to spend time on, Cloud Concinnity® stores that information. Fill it out once and it gets stored in a shared database. Instead of starting over each year, simply nudge the right people to update their information and everyone spends a fraction of the time (and a fraction of the bother) to get it handled.
   

3. Eliminate mistakes and reduce variability with automated workflows. Imagine the peace of mind knowing that every step in your annual meeting process was happening exactly how you need it to happen, and exactly the same way every year. Cloud Concinnity® comes pre-loaded with a set of standard “starter” workflows that bundle frequently associated tasks together. For example, if you need sign offs on a particular document in advance of the meeting, there’s a workflow for that. Need to automate your own check lists and processes in Cloud Concinnity®? No problem. Design custom workflows that will go off like clockwork and can be updated as needed.
   

4. Easily meet SEC compliance requirements in advance. With Cloud Concinnity®, every deadline and draft distribution is created automatically via customizable workflows, reducing the last minute crunch as filing deadlines loom. No more endless gathering. Everything is gathered and logged in a searchable database as they happen.
   

5. Have safe conversations with a centralized system. On top of tying together communications and related documents, tasks and deadlines in one place, communicating in Cloud Concinnity® is safer than email, text and most other tools. We’ve built a layer of our own security on top of everything so that communication on Cloud Concinnity® is as secure as it gets, which we know is critical for sensitive materials like the annual report, proxy and annual meeting conversations.
   

6. Build on established communication patterns with your board members. This is the elephant in the boardroom that no one talks enough about — communication. When it’s good, it’s good. When it’s bad, things take what feels like forever. One of the most powerful aspects of Cloud Concinnity® is that it offers everyone on the senior leadership and boardroom team a single, secure hub for communicating about board matters. When everyone gets used to doing that all year, annual meeting tasks will be part of a smooth system — not another thing nagging everyone in their email inbox.
   

Process is indeed powerful, and building the great processes and communication habits that will make next year’s annual meeting smooth sailing can start now. If you ignore the annual meeting until next spring, it’s going to hurt just as bad next year. But if you use annual meeting “off season” to get smarter technology in place, the next year will feel like a breath of fresh air.

The Irreducible Minimum: What Every Board Director Should Know

Serving on a board of directors can be overwhelming – especially that first year or two. There’s a lot to learn, a lot to read, and plenty of pressure to understand everything right away. The work never truly ends. 

Board directors are expected to keep up with a slew of moving parts, keep in contact with stakeholders at all levels, and make the time to think through big challenges on the horizon long before action is required. Checking out for months at a time is not an option. Neither is showing up unprepared to a meeting, or delegating the important thinking. But at the same time, no one can be an expert on everything, all the time.

So what is a board director to do?

How to Discover Your Irreducible Minimum

We believe that there is an “Irreducible Minimum” that every board director should understand at all times. It’s a set of mission-critical gut check and a foundational understanding of the company you serve and your role on its board. In fact, we believe in this kind of board evaluation and effectiveness touch-point so strongly that we built it into Cloud Concinnity®, Click here to read more about how our smart platform automates this kind of evaluation, or here to learn more about our platform. 

To take a deep dive into how well you know your own “irreducible minimum”, work through the following series of topics and questions. Invite your fellow directors on the board to do the same. Compare answers and see what you learn — and see what that means for your company. 

1. How well do you know the company? 

• Can you explain what your company does and how it does it in a few sentences?

• What are a few of the key numbers that really help tell that story?

• Describe your company’s typical customer.

• What makes your company’s solution the best option for that customer?

• What is your company’s central strategy this year?

• What are a few key goals & landmarks along the way?

• What will it take to make or keep your company profitable?

2. How do you help?

• Is the board actively engaged in developing strategy or green lighting management’s plan?

• Which company goal are you playing a personal role in pushing forward?

• How are company and director progress measured?

3. How do you support all stakeholders? 

• Who are the company’s stakeholders, both major and minor?

• What are their goals for the company?

• How well is your company doing in meeting their needs?

• How does the company navigate conflicting stakeholder goals?

4. Do you participate in policy-making?

• What are the most important company policies to you?

• How are you taking part in the oversight of those policies?

5. How do you advise, support, and challenge management? 

• Can you name the senior leadership and their strengths & weaknesses?

• When was the last time your board had a fulsome executive session discussion about management performance?

• What area was a highlight and how did you recognize it?

• What area needed growth and how are you supporting that growth?

6. How do you contribute?

• How well do you prepare for board meetings on a scale of 1 – 10?

• What is the best question you’ve asked lately?

• When was the last time you and your board self-evaluated?

So, how did you do? Do you indeed know the irreducible minimum about your company? Do you feel good about your answers to these important questions? If yes, that’s great to hear. If not, it’s time to get caught up.

Click here to read more about how our smart platform automates this kind of evaluation, or here to learn more about our platform.