Effective Board Governance

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Effective Board Governance

• Dr. Ken Haycock
• 2006

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Basic Factors in Effectiveness

• Determine Mission and Purpose
• Select/Support/
• Evaluate the CEO
• Articulate Roles and Relationships
• Plan Strategically/ Allocate Resources

• Monitor and Evaluate/Accountability
• Maintain Legal and Ethical Integrity
• Public Standing and Credibility
• Recruit Aggressively/
• Assess Performance

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1. Determine Mission and Purpose

• What business are we in?
• How do we measure success?
• Outputs vs. outcomes

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2. Select/Support/Evaluate the CEO

• Position profile
• Community profile
• Knowledge skills attributes
• Succession management
• Performance measures
• Current issues

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3. Roles and Relationships

• Board/Ground Rules
• Board/Mayor/Council/
• Municipal Manager
• Board/Community/Power Bases
• Board/CEO
• Board/CEO/Community/Power Bases
• Board/CEO/Staff/Community
• CEO/Municipal Manager/Executive

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Conflict (Who? Us? Not!)
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4.Plan Strategically Allocate Resources

• Preferred Futures (roles)
• Process/Outcomes
• Walk the Talk The Agenda
• (dont major in the minors)
• Who Drives the Agenda?
• Consent/Information Decision Exploration
• Delegations? Representation? Liaison?

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Plan Strategically Priority?

• This project is so important that we cannot allow
  things that are more important to interfere with
  it!
• Doing the same things twice as hard will not lead
  to different results.
• How will the world be different tomorrow as a
  result of what we do here today?
• If we dont know where were going
• any road will take us there

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5. Monitor and Evaluate

• Effect of Organizational Culture
• Goals
• S.M.A.R.T. Objectives
• Evidence-based Decision-making
• What? Why? Who? When? How?
• 5 Cut What goes and why?
• Monitor and Adjust Accountability

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6. Enhance Public Standing

• Community events (what is political?)
• Community information
• Role counterparts
• Profile of Director/CEO
• Profile of Chair

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7. Maintain Integrity

• Legal Effect of legislation
• Ethical Effect of decision-making
• Financial Effect of priorities

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8. Recruit/Assess Performance

• Succession Management for the Board
• Older Readers or Community Leaders?
• Trustee or Board Development?
• Goal-driven or Reward-driven?
• Improve the knowledge base
• Governance Committee?
• Sustainability/Performance/
• Audit Committee?

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Board Performance

• Improved education
• Improved relations
• Improved strategic development
• annual work plans
• Improved monitoring, tracking, evaluation of
  programs and services
• (not personnel)

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Clichés?

• Improvement is not mandatory
• but then neither is survival.Deming
• Anything worth doing well
• is worth doing slowly.West
• Rowing is the only activity where you can sit on
  your backside, look backwards, and still make
  progress
• How many Board members does it take to change the
  Board? Only one, but the Board has to want to
  change

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The Choice Is Yours

• What kind of Board?
• What kind of relationships?
• What kind of impact?
• What kind of difference?

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Basic Factors in Effectiveness

• Determine Mission and Purpose
• Select/Support/
• Evaluate the CEO
• Articulate Roles and Relationships
• Plan Strategically/ Allocate Resources

• Monitor and Evaluate/Accountability
• Maintain Legal and Ethical Integrity
• Public Standing and Credibility
• Recruit Aggressively/
• Assess Performance

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Implications

• Necessary knowledge
• Well-defined roles
• (not command and control)
• Strategy and direction-setting vs. implementation
  and detail
• Open flow of information (director)
• Opinions of community leaders (solicit)
• Value-added dimensions to community

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Strategies

• Knowledge-based governance leads to dialogue
  around critical issues
• Direct communication with customers and
  stakeholders
• Strong core values
• Clear focus

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Dr. Ken Haycock

• No time to ask your question?
• Concerned about privacy?
• Feel free to contact me at any time
• voice 604.925.0266
• ken_at_kenhaycock.com