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Most of the available advice about how to improve reports for the board of directors is about content from the senior management team â reminding us that, even though itâs easy to point the finger at management for voluminous reports that are painfully dense, the board itself is accountable to ensure it receives the information needed to fulfill its role. If you, as a director, arenât happy with the form, length, style, and content of your boardâs management reports, go ahead and raise the iss...
Organizations are becoming more and more dependent on third parties to provide the services they need to stay in business â from IT to accounting, from customer service to HR, and more. And the more we rely on third parties, the more important it is to evaluate and manage our exposure to associated risks.
The board of directors plays an important role by ensuring thereâs a focus on effective third-party risk management before problems arise from the increased risk exposure.
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Whether your board serves a non-profit that competes for funding or a business that competes for market share, having a sustainable competitive advantage continues to be the holy grail.
Your competitive advantage is what you do better than anyone else. If youâre lucky, you could have more than one such advantage. The âsustainableâ part of the phrase refers to the ability to continue doing those things better than anyone else over the long term.
Does the board of directors have a strategic ro...
Itâs happened to all of us. Youâre at a board meeting involved in a lively discussion. But when you take a moment to step back from the conversation, you realize that the topic is rather trivial. In fact, it doesnât deserve the time and energy that board members have been pouring into it.
Nevertheless, everyone has an opinion and insists on having their say. The discussion goes on and on, well past the time the relatively unimportant matter should have taken. It seems odd, because a more impo...
For me, reading and learning about artificial intelligence (AI) has been like drinking from a firehose. I could choose to ignore it and get a nice glass of water from the filtered jug in my fridge. But that wouldnât end well.
Instead, Iâve been learning that boards today arenât yet seeing AI as an important education topic for their meetings or board retreats. Thereâs some curiosity around ChatGPT, but otherwise little sense of urgency. In my view, thatâs a mistake.
Does it get your attenti...
Businesses naturally progress through different stages as they grow and mature. So do non-profit organizations. Their boards of directors need to change along with them, otherwise thereâll be a serious mismatch between what an organization needs from its board, and what the board can actually deliver.
As a board moves through these stages over time, it requires a changing set of attributes and competencies from its members. As a director, youâll be more engaged and more satisfied, and youâll ...
Every board of directors depends on a stream of reliable information to fulfill their oversight role. A whistleblower program is a tool for directors to access information that would otherwise not reach the boardroom.
Whistleblowers give the board a window into what is happening inside the organization. But for whistleblowing to work properly - so that both the whistleblower and the accused person are protected â the program must be handled with care. The board plays an important role in esta...
The COVID-19 pandemic is finally receding into the rearview mirror, and so is the crisis mindset that affected so many organizations around the world. Board directors everywhere are eager to get back to a more ânormalâ rhythm.
While this kind of global health crisis is rare, itâs a good bet that sooner or later every organization â private, public, non-profit, or government â will face some kind of crisis. Getting through it will take skill, commitment, and judgment on the part of both the ...
Do you ever feel the calls from the boardroom to modernize, evolve its mandate, redefine its purpose, refresh its composition, motivate the management team - but nothing ever actually changes?
When it comes to making progress in boardrooms globally, there can be an insidious complacency that often prevents us from achieving real transformation.
Maybe your boardroom is the exception.
The truth is that true change demands courage â both on the level of the individual director and as a unifi...
Image - AI bot at the boardroom table - generated by Shutterstock
Todayâs post is by David Jaworski, Principal Product Manager for Microsoft Teams and co-founder of DirectorPrep. Dave serves on the board of INEO Solutions (TSXV: INEO) as well as non-profit boards. He previously served on the Advisory Board of Payworks and the public board of PNI Digital Media which was acquired by Staples. [email protected] LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/DaveJaworski
Thanks to ChatGPT for also contributin...
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