The Savvy Director Blog

Most of the available advice about how to improve reports for the board of directors is about content from the senior management team – reminding us that, even though it’s easy to point the finger at management for voluminous reports that are painfully dense, the board itself is accountable to ensure it receives the information needed to fulfill its role. If you, as a director, aren’t happy with the form, length, style, and content of your board’s management reports, go ahead and raise the iss...

 

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 ...

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...

One of the first things to happen at every board meeting is the approval of the minutes of the previous meeting. Until that happens, the minutes are still considered a draft.

It’s an important step, even though it might just take a few seconds. That’s because minutes are the official record of what happened at the previous board meeting – who was there, what decisions were made, and what actions were planned.

What exactly should you be looking for in the minutes before you vote to approve th...

Our too-short summer is drawing to a close, and, with that, DirectorPrep’s hiatus from weekly blog production has ended. Fortunately, the news cycle has brought us the gift of content.

Hockey Canada is the governing body of Canada’s most beloved sport - a non-profit organization with a board of volunteer directors. But don’t kid yourself – this is big business. And now it’s in hot water and its board is under public scrutiny. That makes it fodder for our third installment of “Governance in t...

This is the last in a series of four Savvy Director articles dealing with various aspects of board and director evaluation. The first two articles in the series, “From Compliance to Improvement” and “From Evaluation to Action,” explored the board evaluation process, and the third, “Evaluating the Individual Director,” dealt with director self-assessments and peer evaluations.

When it comes to the board of directors, board meetings are where pretty much everything that matters gets done – idea...

This is the third in a series of four Savvy Director articles dealing with various aspects of board and director evaluation. The first two articles in the series, “From Compliance to Improvement” and “From Evaluation to Action,” explored the board evaluation process. The fourth will deal with meeting evaluations.

We’ve spent the last two Savvy Director articles delving into the process of evaluating the board of directors – looking at areas such as governance, performance, oversight, dynamics...

This is the second of a series of four Savvy Director articles dealing with various aspects of board and director evaluation. The first article in the series, “From Compliance to Improvement,” explored various approaches to the board evaluation process. The third and fourth in the series will deal with individual director evaluations and meeting evaluations.

“The truth is that every director wants to serve on a great board. Every Board Chair wants to lead a great board. Every Chief Executiv...

This is the first of a series of four Savvy Director articles dealing with various aspects of board and director evaluation. Our next article, “From Evaluation to Action,” will explore key success factors, followed by articles on the topics of individual director evaluations and meeting evaluations.

“How do you take a board that’s good – and make it truly great? How do you take a board that’s great and retain its vibrancy over the years? The answer, believe it or not, is with a board evalua...

One of my favorite things about my role at DirectorPrep is that, when I come across a new idea or an interesting concept in the world of board governance, I get to share it with our Savvy Director readers.

That’s how today’s blog came about. While researching an entirely different topic, I came across a series of articles from the Institute of Directors of New Zealand (IoD NZ) about applying the principles and practices of design thinking in the boardroom.

I found the concepts to be quite ...