This chapter examines more recent attempts to get UK companies to focus on corporate governance, including the Walker Guidelines, the AIFMD, the new Section 172 statement and the Wates Code (and related disclosure requirements).It includes an evaluation of the extent to which, and the ways in which, private equity governance systems might have to change to accommodate these new norms.

‘What a great feeling’, thought the CEO of a start-up company in Zurich when he looked at the Scrumboard in the meeting room, and said, ‘It’s so good to see what we’ve accomplished’. At this, his colleague replied with a broad grin, ‘We really should have thought of this earlier’. It was only the week before that this start-up had introduced the Scrumboard for all projects and meetings. The Scrumboard shows upcoming tasks, tasks underway and completed tasks on a visual template for every project (see Figure 44). In addition, respective team members can be identified using colour coding. The section for completed tasks meant employees could hardly wait to move their Post-it notes from ‘underway’ to ‘done’.

Quiz question: What do small plates, pink prisons, flies painted on urinals and organ donation all have in common? And what does any of this have to do with meetings?

Well, all four cases are examples of nudging in action and the same mechanism at work here can also turn your meetings into productive meetings. The idea goes like this:

If we use smaller plates, then the portions appear larger and we feel full faster, meaning we eat less. In a US prison whose cells were painted pink, the number of aggressive attacks fell significantly. Since images of flies began appearing on the urinals in men’s toilets at Amsterdam Airport, the floors have been much cleaner (men, it seems, love aiming at something). Similarly, in countries where you are automatically registered as an organ donor and have to opt-out if you do not want to be one, the number of potential donors is much higher than in places where you have to opt-in.

Have you ever experienced that feeling? Suddenly the room is full of positive energy and you can build quickly and easily on your colleagues’ ideas, while they do the same. You feel valued and are surprised at just how quickly you can make progress, and – as if guided by an unseen force – exchange information, develop ideas, make decisions and initiate measures.

In psychology, such hyper-productive states are called flow experiences. As a person or group, you are absorbed in a task and can easily shut out doubts, ulterior motives and distractions. You are focused and committed, but without losing sight of the bigger picture ().

This chapter explains the main tools used by private equity firms to mitigate the “agency costs” of delegation: contractual alignment of economic interests (especially through sophisticated pay/performance sensitivity), and closer oversight through board and reporting structures.

This chapter first considers the basic structure of company law, and then looks at private equity structures in light of UK rules that prioritise the interests of the company over those of particular shareholders or their appointed director representatives.In particular, it considers the duty to promote the success of the company and the duty to exercise independent judgment – both applicable to company directors in UK law on an apparently mandatory basis.It considers some contractual responses to these rules, including some that are not currently commonly adopted.

This chapter considers the considerable theoretical difficulties posed by the UK duties to avoid conflicts of interest (Section 175 and Section 177 of the UK Companies Act). The chapter also looks at the common contractual responses to these rules and examines some theoretical problems with them.There is also an exploration of whether these theoretical problems are ever likely to create real-world problems, and suggests some ways to mitigate them, and some suggestions for policymakers.

This chapter first considers the existing academic evidence that private equity-backed companies outperform their peers and then looks at standard explanations for this outperformance.It is argued that existing explanations are inadequate.

This chapter outlines existing theories of company law and corporate governance and related insights that are used to frame the analysis in this book, including those of Adam Smith, Berle and Means, Coase, Klausner, Alchian & Demsetz, Jensen & Meckling, Hart, Roe and Bainbridge.

This chapter describes the economic incentives that are present in the private equity paradigm, and contrasts those with other ownership structures.It uses those incentives, combined with theories of the firm described in Chapter 1, to make some predictions about the behaviours of private equity investors and the mechanisms they will design for their portfolio companies.

↑ In this chapter, we will give you a systematic overview of the Meet-Up approach and its four types of impulse across the different phases of a meeting. We will also show you how these four cornerstones interact and what you can expect in Chapters 5–8. Furthermore, you can use the simple frame of reference in this chapter as a diagnosis and evaluation tool to gauge the current state of your business meetings. Above all, however, the spiral in this chapter is a simple way to visualise the success factors of meetings, to use them as a checklist or to create your own nudges.

You are on the management floor of a large infrastructure office. The huge conference table is made of beautiful wood with recessed retractable monitors. On the walls hang expensive paintings and a huge plasma screen. The espresso is excellent. An hour-long meeting with the Board of Directors on the topic of strategy adjustment has been scheduled, and only four of the twelve expected attendees have arrived. Fifteen minutes later, the meeting is now underway but key people keep leaving the room to make phone calls. Instead of discussing strategy, those present talk about where they live, problems with the computer network and politics. You stare at the scene in disbelief for a while and then courageously ask about the reasons for a strategy adjustment. Almost immediately, you regret speaking up because it gives rise to a 15-minute monologue by the Chairman, beginning with strategy but then digressing into regulatory frameworks.