Governance Bites #156: The Shift from "Pilot" to "Air Traffic Controller", with Steve Bambury

Most founders start as the pilot of the business, but many never leave the cockpit. In this episode, Steve Bambury joins Mark Banicevich to explore why growth stalls when the founder remains the single point of decision-making. They unpack how high-performing advisory boards act as “air traffic control” - providing strategic visibility, challenge, coordination, and future-focused thinking. From founder blind spots and governance mindset shifts to distributed intelligence and scalable leadership, this conversation is packed with practical insights for owners, directors, and growth-stage businesses looking to professionalise without losing entrepreneurial edge.
Steve Bambury is a Strategic Growth Catalyst and Faraday certified chair with over 33 years of hard-won commercial experience. Specialising in transitioning purpose-led organisations from founder-dependency to system-driven leadership, Steve helps businesses shatter the "complexity ceiling" through high-performance governance. He specialises in establishing Professional Advisory Boards that shift focus from mere compliance to forward-looking, strategic performance. Currently serving as a Non-Executive Director and Board Chair, Steve implements proven frameworks that drive exponential growth and commercial rigour. He is passionate about engineering an "engine room" built to last where leaders reclaim their freedom. By integrating applied neuroscience, he provides the strategic clarity required for teams to execute "unreasonable" goals.
#Governance, #CorporateGovernance, #AdvisoryBoard, #BusinessGrowth, #Leadership, #FounderLedBusiness, #Entrepreneurship, #BoardLeadership, #BusinessStrategy, #ScalingBusiness, #DirectorInsights, #StrategicLeadership, #BusinessAdvisory, #GrowthMindset, #FounderJourney, #GovernanceMatters, #ExecutiveLeadership, #FutureOfBusiness, #LeadershipDevelopment, #Boardroom

Transcript

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Hi, my name is Steve Bambury. I'm a certified Faraday chair. My background – the 30 second version of my background – I did an apprenticeship in the Royal New Zealand Navy a bunch of years ago, which gave me discipline and a bunch of really, really close and very good mates. I left the Navy and I got into entrepreneurship. I guess I've always been an entrepreneur. I had my first business when I was 15 years old, as a lawn-mowing round, and then went and set up my first real business in 1993. So, over 33 years, I guess, in the trenches as an entrepreneur. Some of the hard-fought commercial experiences that you get in business. I've got some amazing successes. I have sold businesses. I've done multi-million-dollar exits. I've also gone through the process of losing a lot, and got some amazing lessons from losing everything. And I think that makes you well-rounded. I kind of joke about it and say,"Well, I've got a chip on both shoulders," right. But it's that experience that you can't necessarily, you can't vicariously live that. So, I feel that I've got a lot to contribute. I've got some battle scars. I've been through some really tough times and come through the other side. I got back up after losing everything and then went and started another venture, 10x'd that, and, like I say, been around for a while. So, I've learned some things. I achieved 997% growth over the GFC [Global Financial Crisis] with an organisation. And a lot of that was around having the right mindset, and having the resilience and the courage to stand back up again. I've loved studying human behaviour, so I've been an advocate of psychology and, more recently, certified as a master neuroplastician through the International Organization of Neuroscience. So, I guess that combination gives me a fairly unique perspective. It's the intersection of strategy, which Faraday is so, so good at, and then the neuroscience or the mindset side of it. When you put those two together, you've got something really special. So, that's me in a nutshell. Might have been longer than 30 seconds, but, yeah, that's who I am. And the topic – one of the analogies that you use – is talking about the shift from pilot to air traffic controller, which is what we're going to talk about today. Love that analogy. It's something I picked up from Faraday. The Faraday methodology is absolutely wonderful. I mean, they've been around a long time developing professional advisory boards, and their philosophies and methodologies are really amazing. So, I've been attracted to that and really proud to be able to bring that to bear. The air traffic controller is one of the analogies that they talk about – the pilot to the air traffic controller. We can take a deeper dive into that. Taking that step back and orchestrating what you need to have around a business, I think, is a great analogy. It's something that's really important to help leaders to not only grow their organisation, but to grow personally, and to get back their freedom. Because so many business owners that I've encountered over the years, and having been one myself, have fallen into the same trap. You start a business in the belief that it's going to allow you to achieve your goals and your dreams, and give you more freedom, and give you more income, and be able to have more time to do the things that you love. When actually, in the majority of cases, Mark, it's the opposite of that. And we lose our freedom. And we have these terrible statistics around mental health for business owners and leaders, and the impact of that – the loneliness and the depression and the anxiety and the burnout and the stress that comes from owning a business or leading a business, where we think that we've got to have the answers for everything, and we don't. So, yes, I'm happy to take a deeper dive in that, because it's one of the core philosophies about making a difference for leaders to be able to navigate those complexities, and get back their freedom. I'll do my quick pause... Hi, welcome to Governance Bites. My name is Mark Banicevich and, as you just heard, I have the pleasure today of spending time with Steve Bambury. Steve, thank you very much for your time. As we've said, the topic today is the shift from pilot to air traffic controller. And you often describe founders as the only ones in the cockpit. At what point does that stop being heroic and start becoming a failure of governance? Look, I think when the stresses of lifestyle are impacting your life personally. The complexities of business – it's got more complex to run businesses today. There's more volatility, there's more uncertainty, there's greater complexity in business. Heroism is great if you want to think that you've got to be the person with all the answers. I think that some organisations, some leaders, feel that they have to have all of the answers when they actually don't. So, that heroism really impacts us in a negative way, in both our ability to grow an organisation and grow our business, but the personal impact on ourselves at a mindset space. We have sleepless nights. We worry about things that we don't know answers to. We have these terrible statistics, as I was saying earlier, Mark, around mental health – around stress, anxiety, depression – as business leaders, because we're carrying all of that weight and trying to do so many things. So, to answer your question, I think when those things start impacting us, at that point they manifest themselves physically. We have illnesses that come from that as a result, but then it impacts those people around us. Yes. Because, as an individual, we've got a community. We've got our loved ones. We've got our husbands and our wives and our sons and our daughters and our mothers and our fathers around us. When we're under pressure, and when we are suffering from those stresses, then it impacts everything. Yes. So, I think that's really when it starts having a bigger impact on both ourselves and our loved ones around us. Right. And our ability. We lose our freedom. Yes. We have got this sense of, the way through this is just to work harder."I'll double down on the hours that I'm putting into the business, so I'll start earlier and I'll finish later." Then, all of a sudden, you wake up and the kids are leaving home and you realise that you really have lost that relationship that you thought you were going to have. Yes. Yeah. You talk about an advisory board as air traffic controller, and the owner of the business is the pilot. What are the core functions of an air traffic control advisory board? Great question. Look, I think you've got to have knowledge, obviously. So, it's putting around you those people that have got the knowledge and experience relative to where the business is going. When you understand the direction you want to get to and, you know, what your big goal that you're heading towards, and then break that down into bite-sized chunks. What do we need to have around us? Well, that's the air traffic controller, is managing that. I love the analogy that Dan Sullivan talks about. Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach. And I'll give him credit for the concept of, "who not how". We don't need to know how to do everything. We just need to know who are our best "hows". So, I think, as the air traffic controller, it's around putting those people around us, that know a lot more about certain things that we need to have within that business environment, taking us in the direction that we want to be going, and bringing those people in. So, the ability to understand what we need to develop that strategy. And then understanding who we need to have on that journey with us, I think, is really important. Skills, experience are important. Without that experience, you can't deeply learn stuff from a textbook. There are certain things you can pick up, absolutely, but it's that experience, that worldwide experience of having gone through challenges and successes and experience all across the board. There's going to be a large portion here of self-awareness, too – of knowing what you're good at and what you're not, and identifying those gaps and what the business needs and what you aren't an expert at, and having the courage to stand up and say, "I'm going to bring some expertise in in this area so that we can do this better than I can alone." Yeah, totally. Absolutely. I mean, when you look at, what do you need to have, from a business point of view, or a leader's point of view, to be able to take on board an advisory board? I look for three key attributes. One of them is desire. You've got to have desire for growth. I've talked to hundreds and hundreds of CEOs [Chief Executive Officers], business owners, founders and leaders, and I don't think there are too many of them that don't have a desire to grow. They've started a business. They want to make a difference. So, desire is fairly commonplace. But the second element of that is commitment. Have they got the commitment to do what it takes? I see a lot of leaders that don't really deeply understand what it takes to get to that goal that they're after. You can sit here and say,"I want to climb Mount Everest. It's right there." But there's a little thing in the way called the Hillary Step. You've got to get past that. Before you do that, you've got to get into the gym. How much time are you prepared to do that, before you go and climb your mountain? That desire and that commitment sometimes are mismatched. So, you've got to understand the ability of the leader to have the commitment to do what it takes. Yes. That's back to what you're talking about where you go,"Have you got the ability to accept"that there are things that you don't know and you're"prepared to let go of those things and bring people around you"and take that advice?" Because if you can't take advice and you feel that you've got all the answers, then, yeah, an advisory board is not going to be right for you. Yes. If we go back to that concept of the air traffic control, what capabilities or perspectives are essential in that room to avoid the blind spots that founders may have? Look, I think it comes back to strategy first – understanding the strategy that you've got and where you want to be going – and then, from there, breaking that down into understanding, from the organisation's perspective, what internal capabilities do they have and what is the gap. Yes. What is the gap between where they're going, where they are now, what capabilities they've got, and then understanding who we're going to bring in in service to those goals that we have. So, I think that's a really important aspect. Then you touched on something before – communication. For me, it's not just communication, it's courageous communication, courageous honesty, and being able to tell people the truth of the situation, even though it might be hard to say and difficult for them to hear. I believe that people deserve that heartfelt, honest communication and feedback, so that we can then make decisions around it. Right. Yes. What systems or processes turn that insight that you get from the boardroom into coordinated action, rather than just having a conversation that's very interesting? Yeah, that's a great question. Again, I think once you understand where you're going, and the direction you're taking – and Faraday have got a beautiful model around that. They talk about the three horizons. Your big goal, then you break that back down, and that might be two, three, five years from now. Yes. And then you break that back down into your two-year horizon or your 12-month horizon. It depends how fast you want to go. Then you come down to horizon one. So each of those horizons is heading towards that third horizon. But once you understand that, you've got your strategy in place. You know the skills and experience that you need, and then you look at that and go, "Okay, so how are we"going to know that we're successful when we're going there?"And how are we going to measure that?" And that comes back down to measuring the right activities and then having a framework of accountability. Right. So, the metrics – the right metrics – in service to where you want to be going, and then that accountability, I believe, is the way to do that. Yeah. Fantastic. You mentioned, one of the things you mentioned before was the founder's control of the organisation and, initially, they're in charge of everything. And many founders struggle to relinquish that control. What does letting go look like in governance terms? Accepting that you don't have to be the smartest person in the room. That you don't have to have all the answers. I think it's fundamentally important to that conversation. We often, as leaders, think that we need to know everything, where we don't. So, I think that is one of the biggest things to do, to let go and then hand the reins over to those people that we've elected to bring around us, because they've been brought in to fill a role. They've been brought in to fill a gap of skills and experience that we don't have. And being prepared to let go. One of the features of an advisory board, as well, is that the founder is not actually relinquishing the decision-making power. They're bringing in expertise, having discussions, and then still having the final say. It's not unless they move into a formal governance board where you've got directors that are formally positioned as directors. At that stage, they're actually handing over some of the control of that decision-making. They don't have complete control anymore. Yeah, totally. Yeah. They serve different functions. Your governance board is there for a reason, and it's an important reason. They're looking at the fiduciary responsibilities. They're looking at that governance perspective from a compliance and legislative point of view, and that's really important. An advisory board is doing that – they're providing advice. They're providing their worldly experience and their advice on the subject matters that they were brought in to do. That decision still rests with the owner. It might go back to the traditional governance board to make a decision in that regard. Right. When a founder does assemble an advisory board, what is the risk that they might assemble a board that just reinforces what they already think? Oh look, that's another great question, Mark, because we all too often want to bring around us people that are like us. Consciously and subconsciously, we do that. And the danger with that is if we bring around us people that are exactly the same as us, then we're going to have blind spots. So, it's important, from an advisory board perspective, that we understand where those blind spots are. We need to understand the felt truths and the assumptions that an organisation's carrying, because we all carry them, and organisations carry them. They have assumptions about the way that they think the world is because of the worldly experience they've had up until that point. Yes. Part of the role of the chair, part of the role of the advisory board, is to challenge those assumptions. We can challenge those assumptions in many ways. We can challenge them through experience and skills. We can challenge them through data. Data is a wonderful way to challenge that. That felt belief, "We think that's right. What's how we've always done it." But actually, is it? Yes. And then you start pulling it apart and you start putting some numbers around it. You go, "Oh, actually, maybe"I was making an assumption there. Maybe that felt belief isn't correct." One of the other things that you mentioned before was the concept of measuring success. How should success be measured for an advisory board that is future-focused? Look, I guess it really depends on where the business is heading. There are a number of success metrics that we can bring to play into an organisation, and it really depends on the goals and where you're heading. So, there are multiple number of ways of doing it. I think it's important, as an advisory board, to have a good, hard look at how we're going to measure that success so that we know, when we get there, how we're going to measure success so we've got a framework of accountability. Are we just, to your point earlier, are we just having a lovely conversation, and reinforcing a felt truth, or are we really challenging it and measuring the things that matter? Yes. Because I often see organisations that are measuring the wrong things, or have got the wrong assumptions, and have ultimately got their ladder up against the wrong fence. They're climbing the wrong wall. Yeah. Nice analogy. Actually, on that point of analogies, I've read somewhere where you've described shifting the brain of the company off the founder's shoulders. So, we're talking then about distributing that intelligence. What does distributed intelligence look like in practice? Look, again, I think that distributed intelligence is an interesting way to look at it, Mark. Again, we come back to the simplicities of it – understanding the gaps, understanding where we want to be going, and understanding what intelligence, if you like, that we need to bring into that, and then we distribute it. Now, we can distribute it at an advisory board level, and that distributed intelligence may be required for a short period of time for a specific project. We may be looking at a merger or an acquisition, and we don't have the capabilities and the experience in-house. So therefore, we need to bring that in, and we have, that intelligence is now in the room. We can share that at an advisory board level. Yes. We can make some really, really good decisions in service to what we're trying to achieve. And then, once we've achieved it, and we've measured our success, we've hit our numbers of what we want to do, then that adviser can step aside. Alternatively, if that intelligence should sit within an organisation where it's a gap that you have, but it's something that you need on an ongoing basis, then we have a different role. We may bring an adviser in that's got that relative skill, that relative experience, and then we share that intelligence and that knowledge within an organisation and have it retained in the organisation. So, we're building our own redundancy, as either advisers or as a chair for that organisation. Right, yes. I mentioned before around this concept of an advisory board, and how the founder or the owners are still making, fundamentally, the decisions. In practice, where do you draw that line between giving advice, and the authority for decision-making? Well, I think, to the point you made earlier, there's the company, typically with the founder, the leader, the owner of the organisation. Those decisions rest with them. So, we give advice, and we can share experience, and they have the choice to make at that point in time. And I think, going back to the point that we made really, really early, is that if they've got the right growth mindset, and they're prepared to take that advice and listen to it, and accept that there are things that they don't know, then it makes it easy for them to make that decision – to be able to go, "Okay, great."I'm going to make that decision. I'm going to listen to that advice,"because I recognise that I don't have that skill or experience to make"that decision on my own." Right. But ultimately, the decision does rest with them. Yes. And how does that then work in practice, when you've got your advisers sitting around the room, you're debating a very important topic and a decision needs to be made, and the owner ultimately makes the decision? How is that, is that happening in the room, and how is that then minuted, so that you, as an advisory board chair, for example, don't fall into the trap of becoming a deemed director because you've been involved in this decision-making? How does that actually work in practice? Yeah, look, great question. You provide the advice, the decision's made, and you document it accordingly. So, you've got well-documented minutes that come back out from the meetings that you've got, and your advice is documented, and then the decision is made accordingly. Because you're quite right – we're not taking a traditional director's role in that sense. So, we've got to be mindful that we don't become shadow directors as a result. Indeed, indeed. How should that role of advisory board evolve as the company scales, or becomes more professional, or evolves? Again, I think that comes back, Mark, to the three horizons. You've got that big goal that you're heading towards. Yes. And then that's your horizon three. Your horizon two is taking you in that direction. So, there will be things in horizon three that, like I say, those big goals. In horizon two then, there will be some things that you're doing that are taking you in that direction.  Horizon one, which is going to be a much shorter frame, again, has got to be taking you in that direction. So, as you're moving through and the business is growing and achieving its goals, then horizon one ultimately drifts away. You might have a new horizon three and horizon two becomes horizon one. Right. So, the things that you're in service to achieving in your growth objectives determine what skill, what expertise, what levers that you need to pull on the way through. And that flexibility of the advisory board model is where some value gets added there, right. As you say, your need for expertise can change through those horizons. So somebody may exit the board and somebody else comes on, and it's very fluid in that respect. Where a formal governance board, the terms are a little bit more rigid quite often, and the changeover points are a little bit more structured. Yes. Yeah. What's the hardest mindset shift founders need to make to get real value from this? I think being prepared to let go. Being prepared to accept that they don't have to be the smartest person in the room. Being prepared to accept that advice. I think the hardest thing is letting go, and delegating. Yes. And accepting that, in that delegation process, that you don't have to get it 100%. If you're a founder and you're really good at everything, but you can't do everything as the business grows, then you've got to be prepared to delegate, to let go, and let someone else fail to some extent. Yes. Failure is not a bad thing. So long as you're doing it with some guard rails around it. You don't want to be reckless and cavalier with it. Yes. But if you're delegating, you've got to let people make those mistakes because there are great lessons from that. And if those mistakes happen to involve other people, then you've got to have that courageous honesty, and put your hand up and take responsibility, and then communicate really well. Right. You raised another great distinction there. We've talked earlier today about founders lacking the capability in some areas, and the example you just gave wasn't a lack of capability, it was a lack of capacity. Where they may actually know how to do these things, but they still don't have the capacity to do everything, and need to hand some stuff off to get things done. Yes. Yeah, great. Excellent point. Thank you. I've got one final question for you, which is very general. In your career, what's the best governance advice you've received? Oh, that's a great question. The best governance advice I've received. I guess, is being prepared to accept that people aren't going to necessarily do things as well as what you can. Being prepared to, like we were just talking, be prepared to let go, and being prepared to support other people, but be there for them – to let it go, to let them take it over, and let them fail forward if they need to. Great. Steve, that's been really cool. Thank you so much for your time. I'll look forward to catching up again soon. And we'll see you next episode. Excellent. Thanks, Mark. Thank you for watching this episode of Governance Bites. We have more episodes on YouTube and your favourite podcast channel where I interview directors and experts on various topics relating to boards of directors and governance. We'd love to see you back, and please like, subscribe, and share the videos and podcasts.