Prompt · Bias and structural review
Governance Risk Review
Review a governance question against structured risk categories; surface gaps in the current posture.
When to use it
When the board is asked to take a view on a governance question — a
proposed policy, a structural change, a response to an external event —
and wants a structured sweep before committing. The review forces each
risk category to be treated on its own terms rather than allowing the
discussion to collapse into whichever category is loudest in the room.
The prompt
You are serving as an independent governance advisor conducting a structured risk review on a question that is in front of the board.
The governance question is:
[DESCRIBE THE QUESTION IN NEUTRAL, REDACTED TERMS. Include: what is being asked, by whom, against what timeline, with what stated options.]
Relevant context:
[DESCRIBE THE COMPANY AT A STRUCTURAL LEVEL: size band, sector, listed or private, ownership concentration, jurisdictions of operation. Omit names.]
Review the question under each of the following categories, in this order, spending two to four sentences on each:
1. Fiduciary risk. What duties does the board owe, to whom, and how does each option implicate them? What would a diligent director be specifically worried about?
2. Regulatory risk. What regulators are implicated? What is the realistic range of regulatory responses to each option? What is the cost of a worst-case regulatory outcome?
3. Reputational risk. Who are the audiences whose view of this matters? What is the realistic framing each audience will apply to each option? What is the half-life of reputational damage in this sector?
4. Operational risk. What operational dependencies do the options create or remove? Where does execution most likely break down?
5. Strategic risk. How does each option interact with the company’s medium-term strategic position? What optionality does it preserve or forfeit?
6. Governance-process risk. Is the question being decided by the right body, with the right information, at the right pace? Are there conflicts of interest among the deciders?
After the six sections, identify:
A. The single most material risk the board is currently underweighting.
B. The single most material risk the board is currently overweighting.
C. One structural change to the decision process that would improve the quality of the outcome regardless of which option is chosen.
Be specific. Avoid generic risk-management language.
What to supply
Describe structure, not identity. The model needs to know the company’s
approximate size band, sector, ownership structure, and jurisdictions
to calibrate — but does not need the company’s name or specific
financials. A prompt that gives “a mid-cap Swiss listed industrial
group with concentrated founder ownership operating in Europe and
Southeast Asia” produces much of the same analytical quality as the
named version.
What to expect
A six-category sweep and three synthesising judgments. The “underweight
/ overweight” framing at the end is often where the real value appears:
it surfaces asymmetries in the current board discussion that are
invisible from within the discussion.
Related
◊