The Savvy Director Blog

“I can get my hair cut today!”

Hey, it's a very real thing for people who have hair available to cut. Getting a haircut is one of the early reliefs coming out of restrictions being lifted. A return to normal, something customers can control.

Your hair stylist or barber is glad to see you, and glad to be seen by you. Your stylist’s business is fortunate. As long as you have hair, I’m pretty sure you will return to your previous habit of regular haircuts.

That got me to...

I recently woke up at 3:00 AM with my mind racing about the upcoming board meeting scheduled for later that day via video conference.

As I lay in bed, I heard Fergus, our 15-year-old Scottish terrier, snoring away on the floor beside our bed. It would not be long before his 5:30 AM wake-up bark telling me he wanted to go outside. I needed to get back to sleep.

That day’s upcoming board meeting was the culprit that was keeping me awake. As a volunteer on a government agency board, I was...

Many boards have been functioning well these past weeks, but others have become divided over the important issues that are now confronting them.

More than a few Savvy Director readers have described situations where sharp divisions have developed around the board table while dealing with significant decisions arising from the pandemic. These are not just cases where one or two directors disagree with the majority. They are situations where the board is split 60/40 or 50/50 on sensitive,...

A recent email from one of our Savvy Director™ readers got me thinking about how diversity of experience actually influences the opinions and viewpoints that we bring to board discussions, as well as the decisions that we end up making.

It’s taken for granted these days that diversity at the board table is a good thing and that it contributes to more robust discussions and better decisions. But how does this actually occur? Especially in the light of board discussions with...

For many years on boards, my use of the admonition to never let a good crisis go to waste was often met with understanding, acknowledgement, enthusiasm … and then reluctance.

Change is hard. People are slow to change if they don’t see a burning platform. Boards did not really understand why we did things a certain way because we had always done them that way.

Besides, it worked … until it didn’t.

Reimagining the Future

I only recently discovered that the...

As I attend more and more virtual board meetings, I can’t help wondering about the effect on board dynamics.

In brief, board dynamics refers to the way that individual board directors interact with each other. You can see a board’s dynamics through the language that directors use, how they constructively challenge and debate each other, and the way they make decisions.

When I think about board dynamics, it reminds me that a board of directors is a group of human beings, not just...

Have you attended your first virtual board meeting yet? If not, I’m sure there’s one just around the corner.

Organizations big and small have been adopting virtual meetings to enable seamless board governance in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent social distancing and isolation requirements. Large, geographically dispersed companies may have been using video conferencing for their board meetings for some time already. At the other end of the spectrum are boards...

“A crystal ball?”

That was the first reaction from the CEO of a multi million-dollar tourism not-for-profit when I asked her what she needs from her board, right now. Laughter aside, the crystal ball comment was followed by some great insights from inside the storm we know as COVID-19.

I then emailed the same question to a dozen other CEOs, male and female, across regions, from organizations large and small, for profit and not-for-profit, private companies and government...

If you’re like me, your email inbox has been filling up with information from various businesses about how they are responding to the challenges presented by COVID-19. And if you sit on a board of directors, you have likely been hearing from your management team as they implement their business continuity plan (assuming they have one!) in the face of this health crisis.

The business risk resulting from a pandemic was incorporated into some plans as a response to the outbreaks of SARS...

“It’s really hard to publicly support the board’s decision when I personally disagree with it.”

Yes, that’s a tough one for a well-intentioned board director who cannot support the will of the majority of board members. But is it necessarily a bad thing to vote against a motion?

I’d suggest it’s not. What’s important to the board is reaching consensus. When I refer to consensus, I’m thinking of a description from McKinsey that I read a...