Trustee Articles
Over the last decade, and especially since the Enron failure, boards of all types have been working to enhance their performance. They ensure their composition is competency-based; they align their structures with their strategies; and they have robust, written governance procedures.
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…
More and more boards are adopting the practice of using competency-based criteria to select governing board members. They identify the subject areas and behavioral qualities needed from trustees and apply them to recruitment, orientation, leadership development, succession planning and periodic…
Several events can lead to a decision to down-size a board. In some cases, the trigger is a merger or an acquisition in which seating all legacy directors would result in a large, unwieldy board or produce an imbalance favoring one of the combining parties. In other cases, a large board simply…
Whether a board’s starting point is average performance or mediocrity, the journey to the top echelon of governance effectiveness cannot be achieved with a few quick steps. Board development is more like a marathon than a sprint.
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.
As the drumbeat of attention to governance effectiveness intensifies, the evaluation of individual directors is off-limits no more. Indeed, the New York Stock Exchange, Business Roundtable and National Association of Corporate Directors all recommend that corporate boards institute individual…
The tools that follow lay out a framework to assist you in that thinking and planning process with a focus on the competencies of individual trustees.
The role of a health care organization trustee gets more complicated and more sophisticated every day. Pressures are increasing simultaneously for higher quality, lower cost, more transparency and accountability, and use of evolving and evermore expensive technology.