I don't think, however, that you should expect any dramatic change in strategy. I've been on the board since 1987 and if I didn't agree with the strategy, then we should have changed it or I should have departed," says Mr Campbell.That strategy remains to focus on Courtaulds' three core businesses - coatings and sealants, where it leads the world in marine and yacht paints; polymer products, such as packaging and high tech polyester films; and chemicals and fibres, including Tencel, a new lightweight manmade fibre that has taken Japan and America by storm.Tucked away in a troubled division that was clobbered last year by wildly fluctuating raw material prices and a demand roller-coaster, it is easy to forget that Tencel is a genuine success story. His new-found American friends would think him a regular kind of guy, but might question whether he was driven enough to count as one of them.Get him out on that golf course, however, and it would not take long to understand how the junior production manager, fresh from his Cambridge chemical engineering degree in 1968, came to rise to the top of the only company he has ever worked for while still (just) in his forties How's his golf? "Pretty good, actually I played off six when I was at school. We spent most of the two days talking about remuneration."That he was surprised says a lot about Courtaulds' new chief executive, a self-confessed "lifer" with the chemicals and fibres giant and the antithesis of the flash American corporate big-shot.

You do not get to be boss of a company the size of Courtaulds by just being a nice bloke, but the abiding impression given by Mr Campbell is of a chap you wouldn't mind playing 18 holes and having a couple of pints with. Following in the inimitable footsteps of his larger-than-life predecessor, he was humble enough to admit he could probably do with all the tips he could pick up. The lesson he learnt was not what he expected at all, but a useful one for someone planning the future of a multinational corporation, employing 17,000 staff in 43 countries. "What I came away with was the overwhelming realisation that my American counterparts were completely driven by the material rewards of their jobs in a way that we in Britain don't approach. They were running a two-day course on how to be a chief executive - would he like to enrol? To the amusement of his colleagues - who thought two days was far too long to learn all he would need to know - Mr Campbell signed up right away. Shortly after it was announced that Gordon Campbell was to succeed Sipko Huismans at the top of Courtaulds, he received a call from Harvard University.

But Mr Garratt claims that courses run by organisations like the Institute of Directors are attracting interest from some companies.. He might add that this could also account for their susceptibility to the services of management consultants.In the book - whose title stems from a Chinese proverb of dubious provenance - he sets out how this can be countered through developing directors in much the same way as their subordinates have been in recent years But all is not lost. Mr Garratt is confident that, by following certain guidelines and learning processes, individual directors and boards as a whole can reach required levels of competence.Companies are reluctant to send directors on courses because that might suggest they consider themselves incompetent. The board's job, he writes, is to keep striking balances between internal and external pressures on the organisation to ensure its survival. This entails giving a clear direction to the business and creating the climate in which others can align and attune themselves to that.It is because many business people have spent their careers doing rather than thinking that they find this aspect of being a director daunting. An international consultant on director development and strategic thinking, he believes that not preparing directors adequately for their role lets them carry on doing what they were before - managing.You might think that being a director is a reward for being an effective manager and requires little more than supervising the person who has taken on those responsibilities.