REALBoard Buzz™
Does Your Board Expect Efforts . . . Or Results
Often when I look at mission statements and strategic plans and other direction setting documents for organizations, I will find many effort words. Some boards are in the business of “seeking” a better community. Some want to “promote” their cause. Still others...
Ten Traits of Effective Board Members
Have you ever played on a sports team, worked on a business team, or served on a board, where the people could not work together effectively to accomplish the goal? This can be a frustrating and challenging experience, and often it is because the people on the team...
What’s The Plan?
We’ve all been asked, “What’s the plan?” At home, at work, with friends and family everyone asks about the plan. Who is making the plan and who is in charge of the plan? Plans can be short or long depending upon their purpose. If I plan to make dinner tonight, I need...
How’s Your Board’s Psychic RAM?
Leading productivity expert David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, has coined a fascinating phrase: “Psychic RAM.” He argues that as individuals, when we try to keep our “to do” lists in our heads, we are tying up valuable RAM. Consequently, we have no creative...
Governance Inconsistencies? Bite your tongue!
Early in our relationship, my wife advised me that I wasn’t much fun when watching movies because I had a tendency to identify inconsistencies in the story line. If Marty travels back to the future after having made changes in the past that affect his family’s...
Is a Mainstream Conversation about Policy Governance® Beginning?
In the last few months I have found myself reading widely from the Harvard Business Review. It seems to have become more “accessible” – cleaner formats, more graphics, and simpler language. I had always liked the wide range of relevant and soundly researched topics....
Are We There Yet? Developing Clarity About Results
I remember several road trips when my children were young. About every ten minutes, one of them would ask, “Are we there yet?” Children ask this question because they have not developed a sense of time or distance, or they don’t have a clear picture of what the final...
Who’s The Real CEO?
In the most recent edition of the Harvard Business Review, author Stanislav Shekshnia has written an article titled, “How to Be a Good Board Chair.”* He bases his findings on the results of interviews with many current and former chairs of large corporations. It’s...
Surprise!
In mid-September I read an article in my local newspaper that grabbed my attention. The headline: “Surprised by 700K deficit.” Wow, I thought – a high six figure deficit is pretty large surprise for a non-profit agency. Why, I thought, was the board surprised? The...
Unless the Board Approves
Recently I was meeting with a board that was just beginning to implement Policy Governance®. The board appeared to have a good grasp of the model including the principle of Executive Limitations. The board understood the idea that it would delegate authority to the...