By Carter McNamara on May 17, 2010
Experts often have very strong beliefs and feelings about what should be the extent of involvement of Board members in making top-level policies versus in implementing those policies in the day-to-day affairs of the organization. Those experts usually assert that Board members should attend primarily to the top-level policies. However, various factors influence how involved […]
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By Carter McNamara on May 10, 2010
When you ask Board members if they’ve been trained, it’s not uncommon that they’ll answer, “Yes”. But many times, they’ll be wrong. Board Orientation Board orientation is about the unique aspects of the organization. It might include introductions and team building among Board members, overviews of the organization’s products and services, celebration of the organization’s […]
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By Carter McNamara on April 28, 2010
An Advisory Board (or Advisory Council or Advisory Committee) is a collection of people formed to advise members of a governing Board of Directors. The Advisory Board does not have formal authority. It cannot issue directives that must be followed as is the case with a governing Board. There seems to be an increasing number […]
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By Carter McNamara on April 23, 2010
(The following post applies as much to for-profit Boards as nonprofit Boards — many for-profit Boards, especially in family-owned corporations, operate as working Boards.) A “working Board” is a personality of a governing Board. There is no clear delineation as to what’s a definitely a working Board or not. However, it’s commonly viewed as a […]
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By Carter McNamara on April 19, 2010
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 […]
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By Carter McNamara on April 13, 2010
Too often, when Board members struggle with attendance, participation or decision making, they simplistically resort to a Board training session or undertake team building 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 […]
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By Carter McNamara on April 10, 2010
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 […]
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By Carter McNamara on April 6, 2010
This Part explains the first 5 practices. Part 2 describes the last 5 practices. Recent and very public “white collar,” stock-fraud crimes have brought much public attention to how governance is supposed to work, but too often doesn’t. The Sarbanes Oxley Act is one example of new regulations intended to strengthen the transparency and accountability […]
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By Carter McNamara on April 4, 2010
(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 […]
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By Carter McNamara on March 31, 2010
Many people have the impression that a Board of Directors is a group of very wise people who sit in a very special room and make very complex deliberations and decisions. Actually, most Board members are people just like us who are trying their best to understand what’s going on and what to do about […]
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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.
Nick Lindsay of Elemental CoSec, provides corporate governance, legal and company secretarial advice to a wide range of companies in the UK.