The Savvy Director Blog

Let’s face it, a board director’s main job is to think – to think about finances, risks, strategy and people, and about all the other matters that come before a board of directors over the course of a governance year.

And while there is room around the board table for diverse thinking styles - analytical and strategic; people-focused, data-focused and process-focused; big picture thinkers and detailed thinkers; idealists, realists, and pragmatists; risk tolerant and risk...

Every edition of The Savvy Director works to connect you with some of the latest resources and thought leaders to stimulate your thinking and governance skills in becoming the most effective board director you can be. This week is no exception. We have a couple of great links for you on chairing a board.

We’re also highlighting a recently released report entitled High Performance in the Boardroom, from corporate director Tony Gaffney of Lambay Group Inc. with support from...

Recently, I worked with a board of directors to prepare a list of potential interview questions for prospective board members. The questions were carefully selected to try to uncover candidates’ ‘Three C’s’ – competence, character, and chemistry.

The first two C’s are fairly obvious. Competence questions focus on education, knowledge, skills, and experience. Character questions are meant to reveal the candidate’s integrity and moral courage.

But what...

Everything written since April/May 2020 about ‘Building Back Better’ seems out-of-date. This applies especially to my own material!

Is it just me, or is this second/third wave of our little pandemic going to require more resilience for our boards and management teams than we needed in round one to lead through the uncertainty?

You can do this.

Nine months after the early onset of the virus, our communities, societies, and boardrooms are now thinking and talking more about...

You now have easy access to board resources all in one place. We’re talking about curated lists of podcasts, websites, blogs, books, social media and GNDI links.

Here’s why we did this for you.

Not long ago, we published a blog post called The Six Key Habits of The Savvy Director™. The very first key habit listed was Build Governance Skills.

I believe strongly that knowing and understanding the board’s role and directors’ responsibilities is an important...

Over the years, I’ve reviewed countless proposals, reports, project plans and other documents in the course of my board work and as an advisor to boards. Somewhere in the document, often buried, there should be a section labeled ‘Assumptions.’ It lists the conscious decisions taken by management to treat the unknown as known. Typically, the list of assumptions will include finances, people, resources, schedules, logistics, etc.

Articulating these assumptions is necessary in...

Whenever I spot the words ‘governance’ or ‘board of directors’ in a headline, I automatically know the story will not be a positive one. As far as I can tell, no reporter has ever written a good news story about a board of directors.

Instead, governance stories in the news tend to focus on conflict, crisis and failure – shedding light on goings-on and machinations that were not meant to be in the public eye. However disturbing, these stories make fascinating...

^{Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen perform at a concert for President Obama in 2009. H. Darr Beiser, USA Today}

“It is the hard days, the times that challenge you to your very core, that determine who you are.” Sheryl Sandberg, COO Facebook

‘Keep Your Eyes on the Prize’ is a song made famous by Pete Seeger on his 1963 album, ‘We Shall Overcome.’ It was played to keep spirits up during the 1960’s civil rights movement. Bruce Springsteen has...

As individual directors, it can sometimes be difficult to see whether our words and actions in the boardroom have any effect whatsoever. This can be frustrating, to say the least. I've found that it’s especially hard for former CEOs, who are used to being the decision-maker in the room.

As opposed to the one person at the top of the org chart, the board of directors is a group of people, even though the board is said to “speak with one voice.” If there is only one voice to...

I’ve been meaning to write about governance courage for a while now. After all, it is one of The Six Key Habits of The Savvy Director.

And the Russell Reynolds research that inspired our Six Habits framework identifies ‘the courage to do the right thing for the right reason’ as one of the most important director behaviors that drive board effectiveness.

But the impetus for writing this particular blog at this particular point in time actually came from one of our Savvy...