What About “Big Names”? Many Board members believe that adding a very prominent person to the Board will bring great prestige and credibility to the Board. They believe that funders and other organizations will take those Boards much more seriously. Often, that’s a big mistake. Rarely do those famous people ever show up to the …

Too often, when Board members struggle with attendance, participation, or decision-making, they simplistically resort to a Board training session or undertake team building and training to address their problems. Those techniques seldom work to address those problems. Why Board Training Alone Seldom Restores Boards It is not uncommon that Board members want a “quick fix” to …

In the previous post (Part 2), we covered questions 4-6 of the 15 questions to address in the “plan for a plan.” This post explains questions 7-9. 7. What’s Your Schedule for Developing the Plan? Too many organizations do planning by gathering planners into one retreat where they tweak wording on the mission statement and …

In the post, Part 1, we reviewed the first 5 practices. This post is a continuation from that post, and reviews the remaining 5 practices. 6. Ensure strategic plan that includes action plans The action plan part of an overall strategic plan specifies who is going to do what and by when in order to …

What’s the difference between a code of conduct and a rulebook? A rulebook certainly sets outer parameters as what is unacceptable behavior. However, since most behavior is within those legal parameters, does (and should) a code of conduct dictate how employees should in fact conduct themselves at work? Imagine if a supervisor asks an employee …

(Much of this blog post was published in April of 2010. This post is republished now with additional information from guest blogger, Alan Hough, whose valuable comments are added later on below.) A common question about Boards is “How many members should we have?” Usually that question spawns a range of answers. For for-profits, some …

A post will be published twice a week, most likely Tuesdays and Fridays. Each of the bulleted items below is a topic of a post. The posts are organized into major sections and subsections. For example, the post “Major Types of Consultants” is in the subsection “About Consulting,” which is in the section “Foundations of …

Crisis: Any situation that is threatening or could threaten to harm people or property, seriously interrupt business, damage reputation or negatively impact share value. Every organization is vulnerable to crises. The days of playing ostrich are gone. You can play, but your stakeholders will not be understanding or forgiving because they’ve watched what happened with …

Purpose of this Board Blog This blog helps you improve your Board of Directors by providing articles, opinions, commentary and many related resources. The blog is for a general audience, including beginners and those advanced in Boards. The benefits of an effective Board of Directors are many, including that it ensures: Strategic decisions for the …