The Savvy Director Blog

Does this sound familiar?

A long-standing, knowledgeable and well-respected director will soon be stepping off your board. This will create a vacant board seat.

Once the board becomes aware of this impending departure, a board committee is tasked with finding a good candidate to fill the seat. The committee scrambles to interview a few candidates and recommend one of them to the board.

The board rubber stamps the committee recommendation and – bingo! – there’s a new board member at the table....

This article explains the concept of overboarding and provides practical guidance on managing time, avoiding conflicts, and maintaining high performance as a director.

Once you’ve established yourself as a director on one board, you may very well find that you’re being approached to serve on one or more additional boards.

Is saying “yes” a good idea? What should you think about before deciding? And what is the ideal number of boards to serve on?

As so often with the topics we explore in Th...

This blog explains how decision fatigue affects the quality of board decisions and what can be done to prevent it. It offers practical techniques to improve decision-making through better energy management.

At its core, a board of directors is the ultimate decision-making body for an organization. The board’s ability to make sound decisions based on consideration of reliable facts, coupled with the good judgment of its individual members, is a key element of organizational success.

That make...

This blog explains how Groupthink undermines board decision-making and how to recognize it. It provides practical strategies to encourage healthy debate and better outcomes.

You’ve read the material. You’ve seen the presentation. You’ve listened to management’s request. Now it’s time for the board to make a decision. It’s an important decision, too. You’re expecting a robust discussion.

But the room is quiet. Maybe a couple of directors ask a question or two, just for clarification. Now it l...

“Conflict is inevitable, combat is optional.” – Max Lucado, US author

As a board director, I find there’s nothing like robust boardroom debate to get me really engaged. After all, that’s what we’re there for, isn’t it? To wrestle with big, important issues; to help guide the organizations we care about around dangers and into a bright future; to make sound decisions in the interests of all our stakeholders.

But what about when the debate is not so healthy, when it degenerates into disrup...

Recently, our local newspaper ran a column about the importance of character in our political leaders. It got me thinking about how important it is for board directors to “be of good character.”

Character is a foundation for effective decision-making. That makes it vital for board directors. Sure, directors’ competencies determine what they can do, and their commitment affects how hard they work, but it’s their character that drives how they make important decisions, not just in the boardroom...

Preparation is more than reading materials from start to finish. This article explains how to prepare with a strategic, whole-meeting perspective.

We say it all the time – ‘Preparation is the key to success in the boardroom.’ That’s why we call our company DirectorPrep. That’s why our tagline is ‘Ready for your board meeting?’

And that’s why we developed the PREP Framework that provides individual directors with a consistent, repeatable process to prepare for board meetings. We want to supp...

This blog explains how D&O insurance protects board directors from personal liability. It outlines key coverage types, exclusions, and the questions directors should ask to ensure adequate protection.

In our last Savvy Director blog, we explored how a director may incur personal liability because of their board service. Practicing due diligence is all well and good, but a director’s actions or inactions may still expose them to litigation and penalties. That’s why companies provide their dire...

This blog explains the potential personal liabilities faced by board directors and how they can be mitigated. It highlights the importance of due diligence, indemnification, and governance practices.

When you join a board of directors, and throughout your service on the board, you probably won’t give much thought to the personal financial risk you’ve taken on. And yet, a past board decision could come back to haunt you.

In general, the legal structure of a corporation provides you with prote...

Your success as a board director isn’t about how smart you are, it’s about your willingness to do the work. I’m calling it ‘Boardroom Grit’. Is there such a thing?

Think about the wealthy dude who gets a seat at the high profile charity board table because of the size of his family’s foundation and the potential for a sizeable gift someday … how gritty is that when he never opens the meeting materials and confirms that reality with his off-topic comments and rabbit-hole questions?

Today’s S...