Association Board personality - oversight or operations? As Boards of Directors strive to improve their governance effectiveness, a key challenge many face is striking the right balance between oversight and operations. Many Association Boards started with an operating focus. It was the Boards of new and emerging associations who brought the association together, [...]
Board governance is most effective when Directors share a common understanding of governance, the Board’s role and the key building blocks for achieving effective corporate governance. This presentation has been given to Associations, private business and not-for-profit Boards of Directors. Download Board Orientation Presentation Slide # Board of Directors Orientation [...]
How many Directors should your Board have? Nine. Ok. It depends. Here’s how to about it: The logic of Governance Board size For most organizations three to four is likely too small. A Board’s role is to provide oversight of risk, strategy and CEO performance. Doing a good job likely means a range of expertise [...]
Is your Board too deep into the operation? Generally, we find that Directors are very aware – perhaps too aware – of crossing the line from governance into operations. It can be confusing to try and understand how deep is too deep. Here’s how we think about it. The governance Board’s role is to: identify [...]
Here are four of the most common findings from our Board governance assessments over the past ten years: Directors don’t share a common understanding of the Board’ role. A critical step in every governance assessment is the Director interview. In that interview we ask each Director what their understanding of the Board’s role is. We [...]
When we are engaged by a Private Company, Association or NFP Board of Directors to conduct a Governance Audit, this is the approach we use to help the Board identify governance opportunities and risks: Objectives of the Board Governance Assessment to assess current governance structure and processes to recommend the most beneficial ways to improve [...]
Here’s what we find most commonly when we conduct an association Board assessment: Directors don’t share a common definition of the Board role. Board composition doesn’t reflect the risks and opportunities that the Association is facing. Board operating procedures are focused on staff operations not governance. Association Board Role Definition The trend in association Board [...]
Association Director Experience vs Expertise Competency based Boards engage Directors based on their specific knowledge and expertise. Traditionally, industry association Boards have engaged Directors based on their seniority, industry experience, and even location. Which is better? On competency-based Boards, the expertise of the Directors mirrors the challenges and opportunities that the association and its members [...]