Resource Library

Board MeetingsMaking Executive Sessions WorkA four-part executive session meeting model can lead to effective governanceBy Jamie OrlikoffA strong and strategic partnership between the CEO and the board is a key to effective leadership for sustainable organizational success.

As this grid suggests, good governance decision-making, when supported by a variety of board practices and tools, strengthens the board as a whole and its capacity to govern well.

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

Webinar: A board only exists when it is meeting. This means that the single most precious commodity that a board possesses is its time together. The best boards consciously strive to use their meeting time efficiently and effectively.

Checklists A Trustee Checklist to Address Time Challenges As health care organizations face a number of emerging challenges, the compensation committee of the not-for-profit hospital and health system board is well served to review and update the executive compensation program periodically.

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.

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

Webinar Board Meetings: How to Drive Effective Board Dynamics The format of a board agenda can either drive effective strategic discussion or can stifle it. 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.

The AHA’s report on Hospitals and Care Systems of the Future is not intended to be one of those think tank documents that’s quickly forgotten when the next hot idea comes along. The report, which the AHA will update periodically to reflect changing conditions, is designed to help leaders engage in active, thoughtful exchanges about their desired delivery system of the future.

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.

Board chairs are often chosen based on peer respect, professional knowledge, demonstrated commitment such as chairing a board committee, and willingness to put in the time required. A somewhat surprising finding to emerge from the AHA’s 2011 Governance Survey is that conflict management is an important yet seldom discussed role of the board chair.

While most health care governing boards may still rely on paper packets and board agenda books for board and committee meetings, adoption of board portals— Web-based, online workspaces that support health care governance—appears to be catching up with use in other sectors.

Establishing well-organized and consistent governance processes and procedures enables the board to be most productive, and ensures that its time is allocated to the most critical topics.

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

Deeply held beliefs can blind boards to the true nature of change. It’s time to challenge the orthodoxies. In the early 2000s, the Nokia board debated creating a smartphone. The company’s wireless handset was the global best seller. Management believed consumers would not use a touch screen on a handset.

What if the typical hospital board meeting — multiple hours spent on endless pages of financial data, slide after slide of bullet points and little time left for meaningful discussion — could be more engaging and less time-consuming? With some planning and practice, boards and senior executives can make this happen.

Serving on the boards of a hospital system and its health plan offers a unique governance perspective. My journey as a student of governance began 10 years ago when I attended a course on board best practices. As president of the Health Plan Alliance in Irving, Texas, I thought this would be a good way to enhance my communication with my own board, which is made up of C-level health plan executives.