This content is produced by The Australian Financial Review in commercial partnership with Salesforce. 

"Do you know what question directors ask each other the most," asks Jim McKerlie, chairman of Lithium Consolidated Minerals Exploration and the founder of Bambu Digital? His answer: "Have you had a look at how many people are selling us short?"

"Too often, that's the measure we look at. It's not 'What's the share price going be in five years?' it's 'How many people are going to sell you down tomorrow?'"

The point McKerlie was making – at The Australian Financial Review/Salesforce Trailblazers round table – is that, while transforming a national or global business is hardly an overnight endeavour, many boards are too obsessed with short-term issues.

"These are the people who are the custodians of the future of the organisation," he said. "The chairman has got to get the board to think five years out and invest."

McKerlie also contrasted this culture with the approaches he sees from Asian, particularly Chinese, directors. "The big difference between what happens here and on the Asian and the Chinese boards is that they will take long-term positions, knowing there is a long-term investment," he said.

"Our guys are all worried about the next annual report and going on with the proxy houses. It is so short-term." 

Bridget Loudon, Expert360 co-founder, described the frustrating effect such an attitude can have on a company leader. "We have been a lucky country for almost 30 years, and margins have not been put under pressure. Business structures and business models have not been put under the pressure that they are under today."

Now, she says, "businesses are competing on a global playing field".

Part of the problem, according to Loudon, is that the risk:reward ratio has become more opaque in an era of constant change and often global disruption.

Andy Bateman, national lead partner, Innovation Strategy at Deloitte, referenced the famous Bill Gates maxim from Gates' book The Road Ahead: "We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next 10."

"Boards have a responsibility for delivering to shareholders. but also [ensuring] the security and the health of the business going forward," Bateman said. "Trying to calibrate those two things, I think, is really, really tough." 

McKerlie, meanwhile, suggested that changing an organisation is hard, but changing the mindset of many boards is even harder. "The CEO has got to have a plan that takes significant change step-by-step," he said.

The CEO also needed to make sure they have cultivated allies on the board to advocate on their behalf.

According to McKerlie, if you do not have that advocacy inside the boardroom, and you do not have a managing director who breaks it down step-by-step, then the board will stay where they are and leave the status quo in place.

"And with the status quo, you're going to get run over," he said.