The Savvy Director Blog

It’s happened to all of us. You’re 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 doesn’t 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 wouldn’t end well.

Instead, I’ve been learning that boards today aren’t yet seeing AI as an important education topic for their meetings or board retreats. There’s some curiosity around ChatGPT, but otherwise little sense of urgency. In my view, that’s 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 there’ll 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, you’ll be more engaged and more satisfied, and you’ll ...

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 – 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 “normal” rhythm.

While this kind of global health crisis is rare, it’s a good bet that sooner or later every organization – private, public, non-profit, or government – 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 – both on the level of the individual director and as a unifi...

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Today’s 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...

A board retreat can be a way to harness the board’s passion and expertise and align board members on strategy and goals. When the retreat’s been well planned and executed, directors leave feeling energized, and more engaged than ever in the future of the organization they serve.

The big advantage of a board retreat is that it differs from a regular board meeting in format, content, and tone. A typical board meeting is tightly scripted to get through a packed agenda in a limited time frame. Th...

Your board work should be an enjoyable experience, especially if you like dealing with interesting, complex issues where the best way forward is often difficult to discern. At their best, your board meetings should be intellectually stimulating, engaging, and rewarding – a place where you have the opportunity to exchange views with people you respect and dig down into all sorts of fascinating data.

Then why are so many board meetings boring? And why are so many board directors frustrated, di...

“The paradox of board leadership is that, while you might earn a seat on a board of directors thanks to your abilities, knowledge, or popularity, serving well as a board member means leaving your ego behind.” – Susan Mogensen, Brown Dog Consulting

It’s not a surprise that, as a general rule, board directors have healthy egos. After all, they’re most often selected from among the ranks of successful business people, entrepreneurs, professionals, and academics. Each one brings their own exp...