By Julie Garland McLellan on January 31, 2012
Ingrid is a director on the board of a small listed company. The Chairman is an ‘industry veteran’ and, whilst greatly respected for his experience and knowledge is also followed by a reputation for drinking more alcohol than he can safely handle. For the past two years all has gone well and Ingrid has grown [...]
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By Julie Garland McLellan on January 24, 2012
Company directors are currently working harder than ever before as they attempt to steer their companies through the chaos caused by the global financial crisis. Many organisations that have suffered (or even precipitated) the crisis displayed most of the externally visible attributes of good governance. Good governance structures and reporting are associated with good corporate [...]
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By Julie Garland McLellan on January 13, 2012
Herman has been invited to join the board of a not-for-profit organisation that provides specialist education and training for the non-profit sector. The invitation was extended to him by the CEO who is also the founder and the principal deliverer of services. Due diligence shows that the company is profitable (making a small but comfortable [...]
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By Carter McNamara on January 3, 2012
(Guest post from Andrew Clearfield, Corporate Governance Consultant ) One of the things with the market for governance experts is that almost no one is willing to pay for real, forward-looking expertise, but especially over here in the U.S., the market is almost entirely dominated by a compliance mentality, which means, not ‘How do I [...]
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By Carter McNamara on December 10, 2011
(Part 1 of 2 is Benefits of Involving Board in Projects for Change) One of the jobs of the Board is to continuously ensure the high-performance of the organization. Certainly, there can be many perspectives on what “high performance” means, for example, to always satisfy needs of stockholders or stakeholders or to always achieve strategic [...]
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By Carter McNamara on November 30, 2011
Especially in projects for change in small- to medium-sized corporations, the Board can be the leverage point – the point in the project that can make the biggest difference – for success in significant projects for change. In these situations, if an organization seems reluctant to involve the Board, then change agents should seriously consider [...]
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By Julie Garland McLellan on November 21, 2011
Graham worked as a management consultant assisting the national operations of a company that has grown over twenty years acquiring ‘non-family’ shareholders who now account for 40% of the capital. The founder’s son, who owns 10% of the shares, heads an overseas division and is a director. The founder retains the remaining 50% and is [...]
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By Julie Garland McLellan on October 31, 2011
The difference between chief executive and Managing Director is one of the subtleties that can confuse board members. Boards have the right to delegate the tasks of running the organisation to any person they rationally believe is capable of performing them. When the board delegates those tasks to one of the directors, that person becomes known as [...]
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By Hank Lewis on October 11, 2011
I do know at least one person who has been the chair of a board for over 20 years (a big organization). Is that unusual? It is an extremely unhealthy situation, but is not unusual for an NPO that never grew up. I’d expect that the same people are doing the same things they’ve done, [...]
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By Hank Lewis on October 5, 2011
It is important that specific terms be used/understood with consistent definitions. Members of a Board of a non-profit organization, by law, are those individuals who have specific responsibilities and liabilities, and who have unrestricted voting rights — except for conflict of interest situations. Anyone who does not have voting rights, therefore, is not a Member [...]
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Carter McNamara of Authenticity Consulting, LLC, provides organization development and consultant training services, and is
developer of the Free Management Library.
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Julie Garland-McLellan uses her experience and depth of knowledge in corporate governance to show boards with limited resources how to be more
effective through practical governance innovation and know-how.
