Resource Library

Future-ready Boards: Transforming practices for mission-critical success

A four-part executive session meeting model can lead to effective governance.

In today’s environment it is particularly important for boards to take the time to discuss difficult issues, challenge assumptions and refuse to rely on groupthink when confronting strategic opportunities, financial challenges and quality oversight. To do this effectively, trust, candor, differing points of view and self-reflection are essential — assets no board can do without.

The executive session provides an important venue for maintaining board independence and protecting confidentiality as the governing body carries out its fiduciary duties.

High performing boards learn how to make decisions at the right time using the right processes.

Staying forward-focused as a trustee requires a combination of time management, prioritization and preventive efforts.

Webinar: The first thing any effective board or leadership group does is decide how it will make decisions. Further, effective boards develop different, clearly defined processes to make decisions of different magnitudes. Yet, many boards have never had an explicit conversation about or developed multiple approaches to this most critical of governance functions — their decision making. This webinar will outline several different, practical and effective decision making techniques to expand your board’s tool kit of processes and techniques for making effective decisions.

As a board leader, you can help position your organization to recapture that original enthusiasm and to strengthen the personal connection with members. It starts by taking a hard look at the content and structure of meetings.

See attached sample foundation board master calendar from Accordant Philanthropy for June 30, 2017, Fiscal Year.

See sample foundation board agenda from Accordant Philanthropy.

Seven techniques can help support and strengthen your board's decision-making processes.

Presbyterian Health Plan (PHP) in Albuquerque, NM, put together an ad hoc committee that redesigned its board meetings to allow more time for strategic topics, streamlined the consent agenda, moved to using a board portal and iPads and created a role for the vice chair to observe the interactions of board members and provide feedback on the effectiveness of the board dynamics.

St. Charles Health System’s embrace of Lean practices led to a new culture and revitalized governance model

To maintain the momentum of continuous governance improvement, many "best practices" boards institute regular mini-evaluations of board meetings. Here, each board meeting concludes with every board member anonymously completing a brief evaluation form of how the board planned for and used its time during the meeting.

Effective decision making often requires different techniques or approaches for different types of decisions. The following techniques and practices can help support and strengthen your board’s decision-making processes.

Here are 10 steps for optimizing the way a board uses its meeting time.

To expedite the conduct of routine business during board meetings in order to allocate more meeting time to education and discussion of substantive issues.

The dashboard or “balanced scorecard” has become a staple of effective governance. Charts and numerical data provide a comprehensive picture of organizational performance. Here are some questions to assess whether your board’s dashboard is as good as it could be.