ชาญชัย จารุวัสตร์

คุณชาญชัยหรือ อาจารย์ชาญชัย จารุวัตร์ เป็นที่รู้จักและเป็นผู้ได้รับการยกย่องจากวงการบริหารจัดการธุรกิจ และเป็นที่เคารพรักของบรรดาลูกศิษย์ที่ผ่านหลักสูตร DCP ของสมาคมส่งเสริมสถาบันกรรมการบริษัทไทย (IOD)

ผมรู้จักชื่อท่านเมื่อหลาย 10 ปีก่อน สมัยท่านยังเป็นหัวเรือใหญ่อยู่ที่บริษัท IBM ประเทศไทย ตอนนั้นไม่มีโอกาสได้พบหน้าท่าน แต่ก็อดชื่นชมในใจว่าบุคคลคนนี้น่าจะเก่งทั้งบริหารและเทคโนโลยี มิฉะนั้นคงไม่สามารถมานำทีมบริษัทคอมพิวเตอร์ยักษ์ใหญ่ได้ และคิดว่าวันหนึ่งคงได้มีโอกาสขอความรู้จากท่านบ้าง มาพบหน้าท่านอีกครั้งสมัยท่านมาให้คำปรึกษากับคณะกรรมการบริษัททีโอทีจำกัด (มหาชน) แต่ก็ยังไม่มีโอกาสคุย กัน มามีโอกาสได้สนทนาและเรียนรู้ประสบการณ์จริงๆ เมื่อเข้ามาเรียนกับท่านในหลักสูตร DCP ของสถาบัน IOD ในปีพ.ศ.2552

เท่าที่รู้จัก อาจารย์ชาญชัย แสดงให้เห็นถึงความมุ่งมั่นที่ต้องการเห็นบริษัทคนไทยมีความสามารถในการแข่งขันและเติบโตอย่างยั่งยืน ท่านเน้นย้ำความสำคัญของคณะกรรมการบริษัทหรือบอร์ดว่า มีความสำคัญต่อความอยู่รอดของบริษัท ท่านยกตัวอย่างสาเหตุหลักที่บริษัทประสบความล้มเหลว เป็นเพราะบอร์ดไม่ได้ทำหน้าที่กรรมการตามหลัก Fiduciary Duties ว่าต้องทำหน้าที่ในการสร้างผลประโยชน์ตอบแทนที่ดีที่สุดให้แก่ผู้ถือหุ้น ด้วยความรอบครอบระมัดระวังที่วิญญูชนพึงกระทำ (Duty of Care) ทำหน้าที่ด้วยความซื่อสัตย์สุจริต เพื่อรักษาผลประโยชน์ผู้ถือหุ้น (Duty of Loyalty) ปฏิบัติตามกฎหมาย วัตถุประสงค์ ข้อบังคับ และมติของผู้ถือหุ้น (Duty of Obedience) และ เปิดเผยข้อมูลต่อผู้ถือหุ้นอย่างครบถ้วน และโปร่งใส (Duty of Disclosure)

คำว่าปลาเน่าเริ่มที่หัว หรือ “The fish rots from the head.” คำกล่าวของ Bod Garratt ที่อาจารย์มักพูดถึงเสมอ เพื่อให้พวกเราตระหนักว่าบอร์ดนอกจากมีหน้าที่กำกับดูแลให้บริษัทมีผลการดำเนินการที่ดีแล้ว บริษัทจะรอดหรือล่มสลายอยู่ที่บทบาทและหน้าที่ของบอร์ด ดังนั้นทุกครั้งที่บอร์ดต้องตัดสินใจ จะต้องคำนึงถึงหน้าที่กรรมการตามหลัก Fiduciary Duties ทุกครั้งไป

หากเราสามารถลอกเลียนแบบในสิ่งที่อาจารย์ ชอบ มุ่งมั่น เชื่อ คิด และ ทำ แล้ว ผมเชื่อว่าบริษัทไทยจะเติบโตอย่างยั่นยืน สามารถแข่งขันได้ทั้งในระดับภูมิภาคและในระดับโลก

Management is necessary but not sufficient

The output of management is decisions. The output of good management is the right decisions; conversely, of course, bad management results in the wrong decisions – and these can be very costly.
However, right decision sometimes is no guarantee of success. There are three reasons:

1. Capability. A decision will not deliver if it does not reflect the capabilities or the core competency of the companies – indeed, it is impractical if it does not do so. These are criteria that should have been part of the initial decision-making process.

2. Commitment. A decision will not deliver if, once taken, it is then evaluated through yet more analysis to the point of paralysis. Better to say, ‘OK, decision made, let’s do it.’

3. Engagement. A decision will not deliver if it does not engage the people who must implement the decision. The understanding and conviction, upon the decision was made, must be communicated to the people who are implement that decision. This is one of the most common problems where decision-making is concerned: many brilliant strategies reports gather dust in filing cabinets; many well-meaning initiatives fail to deliver, because they engage only a small proportion of those needed to implement them.

It is clear, therefore, that while good management is necessary, on its own it is not sufficient to guarantee good performance.

Source: Mark Thomas with Gary Miles and Peter Fisk, The Complete CEO: the Executive’s Guide to Consistent Peak Performance, Capstone Publishing Limited (a Wiley Company), 2006

Six-Step Evaluation Process for a TQA New Assessor

Dr.Carlingo, baldrige key resource person has illustrated a basic approach for new baldrige examiner or new TQA Assessor during the TQA calibration for 2010 TQA Assessor on 19-21 July 2010 in Bangkok as follows.
Step 1: Ground yourself in tthe criteria
Step 2: Select revalent key factors
Step 3: Read the revalent section of the applicant report

Step4: Identify 6 Strengths & OFIs
Step 5: Draft feedback-ready comments
Step 6: Determining the scoring range & score

What is Execution?

Execution is a systematic process of rigorously discussion how and what, questioning, tenaciously following through, and ensuring accountability.

It includes making assumptions about the business environment, assessing the organization’s capabilities, linking strategy to operations and the people who are going to implement the strategy, synchronizing those people and their various disciplines, and linking rewards to outcomes.

It also includes mechanisms for changing assumptions as the environment changes and upgrading the company’s capabilities to meet the challenges of an ambitious strategy.

Source: Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan and Charles Burck, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, Random House, Business Books, 2002

Role of the CEO

Know the Board
To obtain the highest value from their company’s’ directors, CEOs must attentively seek to know board member’s background, experience, special skills, special areas of interest, strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes. Based on this knowledge, a CEO can generally predict how the directors will react to management’s proposals, thereby enabling him or her to anticipate and prepare for board questions and disagreements and, in so doing, prepare a more informed and effective case for management’s proposals.

Setting the Tone and Corporate Culture
The cultures at Enron place a premium on earning growth at any cost. To obtain growth, creative accounting was created. Apparently, little attention was placed on developing a system of checks and balances on an out-of-control engine that caused Enron collapse.
The CEO is responsible, with the assistance and advice of the board, for creating the corporate culture and setting the right tone at the top. The CEO’s action and the tone that he or she uses in communicating with employees reveals and influences the company’s culture and the expected attitude of the company’s employees.
The board’s role is to monitor and supervise the company’s culture and ensure that the CEO is sending the company’s management team and employees the right message. It must also identify programs that aid in maintaining the right tone throughout the entire organization, including those designed to deter, quickly detect, and strongly prosecute dishonesty and fraud within the organization.

The CEO’s role in the Decision-Making Process
Inexperience, ignorance, or fears have driven many successful CEOs to keep their directors out of the decision-making process. The reason is that CEOs were reluctant to disclose early warnings or bad news, based on mistaken belief that with time, management could get back on track, meet revenue projections, or raise the funds needed to finance the corporation’s business.
They believed that disclose to the board of bad news or the need for board help would ineluctably lead the board to believe that management was weak, lacked leadership, and needed to be replaced.

What the CEO Expects from the Board
The CEO and the directors must relate to each other as equals in the operation and oversight of the company. To operate effectively, they must trust each other. While current trends are leading to a reduction of the CEO’s dominance in the boardroom, cooperation must be preserved to ensure that the important responsibilities of the board are properly performed, particularly as the new rules of corporate governance are implemented. Therefore:
- The CEO and the director must cooperate and work together to create an open board environment where disagreement doesn’t create disruptive tension or animosity.
- Directors must be aware of the CEO’s need for attentive and committed directors who are willing to devote the time necessary to acquire and maintain solid knowledge about the company’s business, finance, competitors, and risks.
- Directors need to concentrate during board meetings and remember what the CEO and management tells them about achievement, problems, plans, and future strategies.
- Directors need to assist the CEO in planning the agendas for the board meeting.
- The CEO wants and needs honest feedback from the directors, including advice designed to improve a board meeting as well as frank and helpful criticism when required and encouragement and praise when earned.

Avoiding Surprises
CEOs who want to keep their job should never surprise the directors with bad news. Rather, they must keep the board apprised of potential future problems before they occur, seek help from the board solve those problems when they do occur, and make the board and integral part of the decision-making process. This makes good self-protective sense because it lets the CEO benefit from the board’s experience and advice and avoid unpleasant surprise. In addition, if the decision later turns out to be wrong, the CEO van take some comfort in the fact that mistake was not solely his or her mistake, but a mistake made by the entire board after a candid, informed discussion.
CEOs who observe best practices supplement their board meeting material with a two-to three-page memorandum that summarizes the good and bad that occurred during the past quarter, reveals the problems and concerns that keep them awake at night, and focuses on the important matters that will be presented for serious discussion with the board at the scheduled meeting.

Source: Paul P. Bountas, Board Excellence: A Commonsense Perspective on Corporate Governance, Jossey-Bass a Wiley Imprint, 2004

CEO Performance Review

Reviewing the performanace of the CEO is a crutial function of the board.

1. Can the CEO show cause-effect between specific actions he initiated, championed, or otherwise drove and any value created for the company? Can he and the board differentiate between those things he made happen and those things that just happened on his watch?

2. Has the CEO taken credit for share price increases during a period of rising markets, but distance himself from any responsible for falling share prices?

3. Is the current CEO riding the coatails of his predeccessor?

4. While the management team called for increased accountability from vendors and employees in all areas of performance, has the board demanded that same accountability from senior management? Has it been delivered? How do we measure performance?

5. Has the company calculated the true total cost, including adminstration time and support, for various perks that were once viewed as a less expensive substitute for cash compensation? Has the board ever reviewed the use of country club membership, apartment, staff, or other resources to determine whether they are being used, in fact, as described in the CEO's contract?

6. Considering all forms of compensation, including the economic vale of such perks as use of apartments or company jets, how much each executive received ineach of the past three years? How much benefit has gone to directors?

7. How has the growth of this compensation compared to the growth of company's income, balance sheet, and share value, both on absolute basis and in comparision to peer companies?

8. Have we assembled a truly representative peer group of companies and CEOs to compare against our own? How did we choose these peers? Can we make a real comparison without knowing the hiden benefits and perks available to other CEOs we're comparing to our own?

Source: Marilyn Seymann and Michael Rosenbaum, The Governance Game: Resoring boardroom exellence & Creditability in Corporate America, Aspatore Inc, 2003

The Essential Task of Directors

The board’s task is to direct, which is why directors are called. The major works of the board include 1) strategy formulation 2) policy making 3) supervision of executive management and 4) accountability to shareholders.

Strategy Formulation

In formulating strategy, the board works with senior management, looking ahead in and outside the firm, seeing it in its strategic environment. (STEP: Social, Technology, Economic, Political)

Strategy formulation means setting the direction for the business, in the context of external competitive and customer market situation, and in the light of prevailing economic, political and technological factors. This is a crucial aspect of the board’s role: it is after all why directors are so called.

Strategies need to be developed, evaluated, and eventually, the directors have to make choices.


Policy Making
Strategies then need to be translated into policies to guide management action and provide plans for subsequent control. In formulating strategy and making related policy, a particular challenge to directors is to ensure that the long-term interests of the company are balanced with the short-term goals.


Supervision of Executive Management

The board must also monitor and supervise the activities of executive managers and at recent performance.

Accountability to Shareholders

Accountability involves looking outwards and reflecting corporate activities and performance to the shareholders and other stakeholders with legitimate claims to accountability.

Of course, boards vary in the extent to which the board as a whole engages in these functions or delegate works to the CEO and management team, while ensuring the necessary monitoring and control processes are in place.


The strategy formulation and policy making are performance roles, concerned with the board’s contribution to corporate direction. The executive supervision and accountability are essentially concerned with ensuring conformance.

In a two-tier board the roles are separated, with executive board responsible for performance and the supervisory board responsible for conformance.


Source: Bob Tricker, Essential Director, The Economist Newspaper Ltd, 2003