Recently, I was contacted by a friend looking for some governance insight. She had been approached to be the Chair of a young, fast growing start-up. Although she didn’t have any Board experience, there were many logical reasons the start-up had reached out to her. My friend wanted to understand everything she could about being [...]
Boards Fail Often (more often than it seems) We are passionate advocates for strong corporate governance. We believe good governance leads to organizational health and sustainability. We get depressed when another large (frequently public) organization bites the dust or hits the skids. Whereas the press and many others seem to blame management, we frequently find [...]
Corporate governance is most effective when Directors share a common understanding of what is corporate governance, the Board’s governance role and the key building blocks for achieving effective corporate governance. This presentation has been used by Associations, private business and not-for-profit Boards of Directors to define corporate governance and the role of the Board of [...]
How many Directors should your Board have? Nine. Ok. It depends. Here’s how to think about it: The logic of Board of Directors Size and Composition For most organizations, a Board of three to four Directors is likely too small. A Governance Board’s role is to provide oversight of risk, strategy and CEO performance. Doing [...]
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 to conduct an Association Governance Assessment, this is the approach we use to help the Board identify governance opportunities and risks: Association Governance Assessment Objectives to assess current governance structure and processes to recommend the most beneficial ways to improve association governance and further improve the performance of the organization Association [...]
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 [...]
“Strategy is a waste of time”. Lots of private business owners we know feel this way because their private business has achieved a high degree of success without strategy. Why should they start now? Here’s why: Because too many private companies get stalled at the natural level of success that’s possible by spotting a market [...]