Staff

Faced with a global crisis in 2020, board directors and executives reported a renewed focus on corporate resilience in our latest McKinsey Global Survey on the board. Now, as boards (and the rest of us) look toward a COVID-19 recovery, the survey responses suggest that in the pandemic’s wake, boards—especially those that were quickest to adapt to the crisis—are shifting their attention toward more specific risks and organizational and cultural issues.

When respondents were asked about the topics on their 2020 agendas, corporate resilience made the biggest jump since 2019—perhaps unsurprisingly, in the midst of a global pandemic. In our research, we identified boards that made changes to their structures, processes, and interpersonal dynamics during the pandemic and were effective in their overall response to the crisis. These “most adaptable” boards,¹ according to their directors, were more likely than their peers to have resilience on their agendas. But when asked about this year’s agenda, directors at the most adaptable boards suggest that they are moving away from overall resilience as a topic: the share citing it has dropped 20 percentage points.