Boardroom relationships often go wrong, but there remains a queasiness among many board members for grappling with the psychology of boards and relationships, even though it might help them get past sticking points to make better decisions.

“There can be a sort of aversion to psychology and an aversion to looking hard in the mirror,” says Helen Hopper, psychologist, former management consultant and the co-author of a new book about managing boardroom relationships. “But if you can get an advantage from it, I think most senior people want to do things as well as they can and they want to contribute; they don’t want to be left frustrated, annoyed, and not have delivered, individually or collectively.”

Co-written with Joy Harcup, former lawyer turned executive coach, The Art and Psychology of Board Relationships: The Secret Life of Boards is a deep dive into the psychology needed to heal relationship rifts in the boardroom.

Hopper’s expertise is in demand. Recently, she presented at an annual conference for the hundreds of non-executives who represent the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in boardrooms.

On the defensive

Her book, meanwhile, takes as its starting point the way dysfunctional relationships can cause boardroom decisions to go awry. More often than not, they sour because a board member feels threatened and deploys “self-protective defences”.

“Measures which can have the unfortunate side-effects of limiting your individual capacity for judicious actions and undermining your ability to relate well to your colleagues,” as the book says.

These measures include “projection”—attributing uncomfortable feelings and unwanted thoughts to other board members— and “transference”, which is recalling difficult feelings about someone in the past and applying them to someone in the present. Both can happen unconsciously and make it very difficult to get on with fellow board members.

Harcup and Hopper argue defensiveness can make an unwelcome appearance during “seven tricky dynamics” in boardroom relations. But these dynamics can be managed through the deft application of psychological theory, whether it be psychodynamics, cognitive behavioural psychology or neuroscience.

The seven ‘tricky’ boardroom dynamics

• Seesawing power between execs and non-execs
• Negotiating a standoff in a divided board
• Bullying: dealing with domineering or coercive behaviour
• Enabling the “passive” rubber stamper to assert their authority
• Descending the ivory tower
• Harnessing diversity, or drawing on a broad range of perspectives
• Doomsday scenario; pulling together in a crisis.

The book is about leaders using psychology to gain self-knowledge to an extent where they can manage their relationships better. One example in the book sees a chair, a self-confessed “command and control” manager, competing with the chief executive for influence. A mentor and a therapist ended up helping the chair “address the feeling of inadequacy” he had been projecting onto colleagues.

The book has many more examples, each used to illustrate a different “tricky dynamic” and showing how one of the above three areas of psychology can be applied as a solution.

Hopper says that, although relationship conflicts are common, she is not surprised by them, despite the intelligence and experience of people who make it to boardroom level.

“It’s part of the human condition that we stumble into these things,” she says. “Gradually, we become more aware of our own propensities and we are more able to notice when we’re in a situation.

“The really key bit is not that we get into these tangles, but that we have an idea of how to get out of them.

“That’s really what the book is about: can you get better at noticing in yourself what’s going on—reading boardroom situations, detecting dynamics and then just having some very practical, next best moves that you can make to start to unpick a knot, to start to defuse things.”

The path to wisdom?

One reason Hopper believes high-flyers may find themselves in clashes is because, as they climb the ranks, they gradually stop receiving feedback while, at the same time, developing a belief that they should “be wise and capable”.

In the boardroom, they come across other people with the same mindset, a moment that can induce a sense of ignorance or vulnerability that morphs into defensiveness.

Hopper recognises there may be some discomfort in adopting the techniques and insight detailed in the book, but she says that despite leaning on theory, it remains practical.

“We’re not suggesting people sit around and sing Kumbaya!

“But we are saying: the world of sport has made massive gains by harnessing some of these simple theories that are widely accepted, and scientifically very well evidenced. And that’s all it is really.

“The uncomfortable thing is that it starts with ourselves. Because we can’t really intervene well in a situation and move it forward unless we’re in a relatively stable state ourselves.”

The biggest lesson readers should take from the book, Hopper says, is that although relationship problems can appear “intractable”, simple solutions can often work.

“If you’ve got a really adversarial relationship with someone on the board and you just can’t have any conversation without it turning into throwing rocks at each other, the most useful thing you can do, perhaps, is travel to part of the organisation together.

“Spend time together, have a nasty sandwich together and get stuck in Nuneaton!

“It seems counterintuitive, because it’s the last thing you want to do. But, in fact, once you’ve started to spend time with someone and get to know them, it’s much harder to fight and it’s much easier to understand and to be curious about what’s happening.”

She adds it’s not just about self-knowledge. “Look at yourself, but it’s also about knowing that there are quite simple ways to make things better.”

Helen Hopper is the co-author of The Art and Psychology of Board Relationships: The Secret Life of Boards (Routledge).