Bowman’s main message was that each item for a board agenda would be linked to one of the fund’s strategic goals. He urged chairs to rigorously enforce this, partly as a means of preventing “personal gripes that go on for ages” from individual directors. Such a policy would also mean that agendas should not have an item labelled as “any other business”.
Your Vision statement is more than a catch phrase: it's a call to arms and one of the most powerful innovation tools available. But you need to know how to use it. The real question is: How well do we map our existing business, services and programs against the key elements of our Vision statement, and how well do we “walk the talk”?
Have you ever been trapped in a Board meeting that has totally lost its focus? Do you dread Board or staff meetings that achieve little or nothing? Sometimes, without even knowing it, any Director can waste the time of the Board by leaning into operations rather than strategic governance. So how do you handle the toxic trap of micromanagement?
With current increased uncertainty and complexity, it may be tempting to put off the board meetings for your board or committee because you can’t meet face-to-face. But do you really need to cancel or simply pivot?
Given the pace of change and complexity in today’s business environment, Advisory Boards are often underutilized resources for strategic, high-value information and guidance.
For many corporate and nonprofit organisations alike, the need to evaluate the Board of directors, the strengths, weaknesses and skills gap at any given time, is critical to managing its effectiveness. Leverage these strategies and put your crosshairs on the areas that need the most improvement.
How you view the role of the Board can have a big impact on its effectiveness. Does your Board meet to tick the boxes on compliance? Or is it about choices and creation? This free white paper, Choices, Future, Communities, is a wake-up call to anyone who thinks they are too small to make a difference.
Despite the challenges of regulatory uncertainty and economic pressure, a space to begin proactive discussions around mergers, acquisitions and other forms of sustainable growth has been created for organisations which are willing and prepared.
How prepared an organization is to detect, respond and recover from a cyber attack will determine its resilience following the inevitable data or security breach it will suffer some day. Are you preapred for the inevitable?
Reasonable people can disagree on important issues. But what do you do if you firmly believe the consensus decision is wrong and that the Board is veering toward a decision that could be extremely damaging?
In a recent study, less than half the nonprofit CEOs surveyed said they did not have an adequate succession planning process in place. If building a board leadership pipeline is among the most important areas for board improvement, why does it routinely fail to take priority?
Use the following as a sample of Director standards with which to inform and assess each Director on the Board as well as incoming candidates or volunteers.
If decision making around the Board room is likely to recede into the weeds its productivity and effectiveness is greatly diluted. The Board induction program is the first and greatest opportunity to set personal expectations from the beginning of a Director’s tenure.
“In camera” is a Latin term which can be understood to mean an "in private" session in this context. It involves a confidential meeting, or a portion of a meeting, taking place with only Board members present.
Strategic awareness rarely features in modern textbooks on management, yet is something that can fundamentally change conversations and decision-making at the Board level.
In essence, strategic awareness is the...
The primary reason driving most mergers is to gain some type of advantage or to stave off some sort of disaster. The only way organizations can decide if a merger makes sense is to evaluate whether it significantly advances their vision and strategic objectives. Since these strategies are, presumably, designed to increase the ability of the organization to deliver against its vision, their accomplishment should, by definition, increase profitability.
Many nonprofit organizations elect or appoint an individual to the position of Treasurer and that person is deemed responsible for the financial management of the organization.
One of the key assets of any nonprofit organization is its CEO (or MD, EO, GM, Coordinator or any other title that represents the chief staff leader). A primary reason many great CEOs choose to leave their organization is due to poor handling of their performance management by the Board, or sometimes not at all.
The relationship between the nonprofit Board Chair and the CEO is arguably the most important relationship in the organization.
On the one hand, Directors have the right to access everything that goes on in the organisation (with some exceptions mainly related to privacy laws), as in the end, the Director is ultimately responsible.
