Welcome to The Savvy Directorâą blog, a place to engage on board governance topics as you travel the path to being a savvy director.Â
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Recently we re-published an earlier blog post, âWhat do I need to know about risk?â and shared The Savvy Director Guide to Risk with our subscribers as well as our network on LinkedIn.
Of course, thereâs no way that a single blog post can cover the full breadth of a complex topic like risk. After all, there are entire books and courses of study devoted to the subject. Comments from some of our Savvy Director readers gave us great ideas for a follow-up blog on the topic.
Many thanks to those ...
If your board is now contemplating the transition from virtual meetings back to in-person ones, you may once again be confronted with the dreaded decision, âWhere should I sit?â
Okay, I get that this is not the most urgent and compelling matter in front of a board director, but it may actually cause you a small amount of anxiety when you're confronted with all those empty chairs. I know that, personally, I've been grateful for tent cards in such a situation.
Is there a right place and a wron...
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âGovernance stories in the news tend to focus on conflict, crisis, and failure â shedding light on goings-on and machinations that were not meant to be in the public eye. However disturbing, these...
In last weekâs Savvy Director post, I wrote about healthy tension among board members, and the need to prevent it from deteriorating into disruptive conflicts, or resolving the conflicts quickly if they do arise.
But thereâs a certain kind of conflict that arises in the boardroom that I didnât address â one that requires finesse and sensitivity to manage. Iâm referring to conflict between the CEO (often called the Executive Director in the non-profit world) and the board.
The relationship be...
Ever heard that one before?Â
Thankfully it happens much less these days. But it took an experienced director to pull me aside after a board meeting one time to help see the light.Â
Body language, tone of voice, choosing your words with care, and simply waiting for the right time to jump into the discussion have all made a huge difference in my ability to have influence over others in the boardroom. But not every time. I still manage to mess up when Iâm not conscious of listening first or ...
The board interview â itâs a key step in assessing the fit between a board of directors and a potential new board member. But for both parties â the board and the candidate - itâs so much more than that.
Last week The Savvy Director blog focused on the âfitâ â or lack thereof â between a board and potential new directors. We advised using behavioral questions to uncover candidatesâ fit with the board. And we provided some questions for potential directors to help determine the boardâs fit wit...
Relax! Having a conflict of interest with respect to something on the boardâs agenda need not interfere with your ability to function as a high quality board director. Itâs okay to have them. It doesnât make you a bad person or ineffective board member. The real issue is whether your board has a good process/policy/practice to manage and mitigate any actual or potential conflicts.
Letâs get the definition out of the way.
A conflict of interest is a situ...
Someone on LinkedIn said, âGood governance is like keeping the train on track.â I like that analogy as it runs parallel to the description of the CEO who âkeeps the trains running on time.â
You need both â good direction and good execution.
You also need the third phase of the boardâs work â monitoring progress.
It may have been John and Miriam Carver who described the work of the board as:
In over twenty years workin...
How should a board of directors be spending its time and energy? When I serve on boards, I make sure there is plenty of room on our agendas to regularly spend time on four key topics: finance, people, strategy, and risk. I refer to these collectively as The Savvy Directorâs Focus.
Board directors donât need to be experts in these areas, but we should all have at least a basic understanding of them. And so, todayâs blog focuses on what a board director needs to know about risk.
For many of ...
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