Why good governance starts with better questions.
On Monday, we asked a simple question: What don't we know?
It is an uncomfortable question only if we assume that effective directors are supposed to know everything. They aren't.
Directors are appointed for their experience, expertise and judgement. But one of the characteristics of genuine experience is understanding where its limits lie.
The challenge facing boards today is therefore not simply acquiring more knowledge. It is developing the ability to recognise when more knowledge is needed. That requires something deceptively simple: Curiosity.
Curiosity is becoming a governance capability This is not just a philosophical argument. In its 2026 NEDs Reimagined report, the Institute of Directors argued that non-executive directors need to bring greater energy and curiosity to their role.
The Financial Reporting Council's guidance around the UK Corporate Governance Code similarly emphasises breadth of perspective, constructive challenge, continually updating directors' skills and knowledge, seeking external expertise where appropriate, and ensuring boards receive timely, accurate and high-quality information.
There is a common thread running through all of this. Effective governance is not built around a board having every answer. It is built around creating the conditions in which the right questions are more likely to be asked.
Experience is essential. But experience looks backwards. Every experienced director brings a mental library into the boardroom. Transactions completed. Crises navigated. Markets entered. Businesses built. People managed. Regulatory change absorbed. Mistakes made and lessons learned.
That accumulated experience is extraordinarily valuable because it allows directors to recognise patterns, test assumptions and apply judgement. But experience is inevitably built from what has already happened.
The board is governing what happens next.
The more unfamiliar the issue, the less likely it is that experience alone will provide the answer.
Artificial intelligence and cyber risk are obvious examples. But the same applies to geopolitical disruption, emerging regulation, operational resilience, digital assets, new technologies and changing business models. The answer cannot be to fill every board with an expert in every conceivable subject.
Instead, the more important capability may be knowing when the board needs to reach beyond what it already knows.
Expertise doesn't have to sit around the board table One of the strengths of a well-governed organisation is the professional ecosystem surrounding its board. Management. Administrators. Company secretaries and governance professionals. Legal and regulatory advisers. Auditors. Risk and compliance teams. Technology specialists. Other external advisers.
Their role is not to substitute for the judgement of directors. It is to contribute information, expertise, perspective and challenge from which directors can exercise that judgement.
The UK National Cyber Security Centre provides a useful example. Its board guidance does not expect directors to become cyber-security specialists. Instead, it helps them understand enough to have constructive conversations with technical experts and ask the right questions.
That is a useful model well beyond cyber. A director does not necessarily need to know everything the specialist knows.
But the director needs enough understanding to ask sensible questions, challenge the response, recognise when further assurance is required and ultimately reach an informed conclusion.
Expertise can be brought to the board. Judgement cannot be outsourced from it.
More information is not necessarily more understanding Boards have access to more information than ever before. Board packs can run to hundreds of pages. Dashboards can measure almost anything. Regulatory updates arrive continuously. Advisers produce reports. Management produces analysis. Technology can generate still more.
But the existence of information does not guarantee understanding.
The board's access to information is effectively unlimited. Its attention is not.
The objective cannot simply be to give directors more information. It must increasingly be to help them identify what deserves their attention.
What has changed? What is material? What contradicts what we already believe? What assumption underpins this recommendation? What is missing from the analysis? Who might see this differently? And what should we understand before making this decision?
These are questions of context, not volume.
A 300-page board pack may contain the answer. That does not necessarily mean the answer will be seen. And the quality of challenge around the board table will inevitably be influenced by what happens before the meeting.
Did the director have the right information? Was there enough time to consider it? Could an issue in one document be connected to information somewhere else? Was the director able to explore something unfamiliar before deciding what questions to ask?
Good challenge rarely begins with knowing the answer.
It begins with recognising that there is a question worth asking.
Curiosity also requires culture None of this works if the boardroom does not make space for questions. A board can contain enormous collective experience and still discourage curiosity if every question is interpreted as criticism, uncertainty is treated as weakness or the pressure to reach consensus overwhelms constructive disagreement.
The strongest boards should be able to say: We don't know enough about this yet.
That statement does not diminish the board. It demonstrates judgement. It creates permission to seek another perspective, obtain additional information, commission further assurance or take more time before reaching a conclusion. It also makes diversity of thought more valuable.
Different professional backgrounds, industries, jurisdictions and experiences increase the likelihood that someone asks the question others have not considered.
The objective is not disagreement for its own sake. It is a broader field of view.
Technology changes what is possible There is one further participant entering this governance ecosystem: technology, and increasingly artificial intelligence. That needs careful positioning.
AI should not become another voice in the boardroom whose conclusions are accepted without challenge. Nor should technology attempt to replace the administrator, company secretary, adviser, specialist or director. Used well, its value may be different.
Technology can search information at a scale no individual director realistically can. It can compare documents, identify inconsistencies, surface relevant regulatory material, make connections across information and help a director explore an unfamiliar subject before a meeting. It can also help identify questions that might deserve further consideration.
But identifying something is not the same as judging it.
Evidence from other areas of regulated professional activity reinforces that distinction. The FRC's work on the use of AI in audit stresses the continued importance of professional judgement and human oversight. Mark Babington, its Executive Director of Regulatory Standards, captured the accountability point rather neatly:
“You can't blame it on the box.”
The FCA has similarly emphasised that accountability for regulated activities and outcomes must remain clear, with appropriate human oversight as AI adoption develops. That principle feels particularly important in governance.
Technology can widen the field of view. Expertise can deepen understanding. But judgement remains with the director.
The curious board Perhaps, then, the modern board does not need to know everything. It needs something more achievable, and arguably more valuable. It needs the collective experience to recognise patterns. The curiosity to challenge assumptions. The confidence to acknowledge uncertainty. The information to understand the issue. The expertise to explore what it does not know. The diversity of perspective to see the issue differently. And the judgement to decide what to do next. That is not a board admitting weakness. It is a board recognising how good decisions are actually made.
Because in an increasingly complex environment, the quality of governance may depend less on having every answer available around the table and more on ensuring the board remains capable of asking the question that matters next.
What haven't we considered?
On Friday, we'll look at the role technology can play in helping directors answer that question: not by replacing experience, expertise or judgement, but by helping directors bring better information and better questions to the boardroom.