Articles

Improving Your Board’s Productivity and Performance with Neuroscience

Productive meetings are central to board effectiveness and Director satisfaction. Productivity in a board context is not just about efficiency. It should also be demonstrated through the value add the board delivers. High-performing boards know that unproductive meetings waste time and money and can adversely impact decision-making. In the non-profit sector, unproductive meetings can drain already limited resources. Common actions boards apply to improve productivity in the boardroom include: streamlining agendas, delegating to committees, prioritising issues and modifying board packs (to name a few).

Risky Business: Risk Management and the Not-for-Profit

Changes made by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) to increase the accountability and transparency of the NFP sector mean charities and other NFPs will now be expected to have greater ownership over their financial investments and risk management strategies. These changes are not a bad thing, in fact quite the contrary. They’ve been established to ensure that the foundations for increasing the scale and scope of Impact Investing in Australia are in place.

Reviewing Your Constitution – Food for Thought

Your constitution (or sometimes referred to as your governing rules or charter) is the document that governs how your Not-for-Profit (NFP) organisation operates. It is a legal document — a contract — and its terms must be complied with at all times. Importance of your constitution Your constitution must comply with the laws that are relevant to your NFP organisation which may be the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), or the Associations Incorporation Act of your State or Territory.

New Directions in Directing

Nothing destroys the spirit of an organization faster than focusing on people’s weaknesses rather than on their strengths, building on disabilities rather than abilities. The focus must be on strength…the greatest mistake is to try to build on weakness. — Peter Drucker Today’s boardrooms are increasingly governed for weakness. Many directors no longer direct their organisation into strength but monitor and cross-examine their management out of fear and an unchallenged acceptance of a failing model of corporate governance.

Disaster and Crisis: Dilemmas and Challenges for Boards

The world in which our organisations have to operate is growing increasingly complex and turbulent. Organisations in the not-for-profit sector are being buffeted by an ever-increasing range of impacts on their operation and demand for their services. There is an almost endless list of disasters and crises that might occur, but the one thing they have in common is that they force VERY rapid change on organisations. A little preparation can be incredibly valuable for an organisation trying to cope during a disaster or crisis.

What is Your Director Personality?

There is a growing understanding that board behavioural dynamics are a central driver in producing strong organisational outcomes. Every board will demonstrate different behavioural dynamics. These differences are both between boards and within the one board over time. However, boardroom dynamics is often a difficult area for boards to address when they go awry. Four important drivers impact board behavioural dynamics: The specific issues facing the board at the moment; The impact of both the organisational and board cultures; The individual personalities of the chair and the CEO and how their personalities interact; The personalities of the directors and, to a lesser extent, the roles and personalities of the company secretary and members of the senior management team such as the chief financial officer.

Recruiting Board Members – Working with a Nominating Committee

For too long, not-for-profit boards have remained a coy social group, not always adding value to the strategic development and operations of the organisations on whose boards they sit – yet CEOs cannot get their strategies off the ground unless they have a capable board to endorse and support them. It’s all about cause and effect. The problem often results from the way in which directors were recruited in the first place.

The True Cost of Business

We commonly relate cost of doing business with the monetary cost of inputs to deliver an output. However, true or full cost and costing involves detailed identification, categorisation, measurement and valuation of ALL resource inputs required to achieve the objectives of the activity, program and ultimately, the purpose of an organisation. As part of good organisational governance, it is the Board’s role to establish the framework, methodology and approved policies under which service costing (and eventually pricing) is managed.

Not for Profit, Not for Fraud

We trust our staff. We are a values based organisation. We don’t have any fraud here. Let’s clear this up once and for all. It is likely that you do have some form of fraud or corruption happening in your organisation; you just don’t know about it yet. More often than not some of your staff will be either involved, or at the very least, aware of its existence. Any questions?

The Fish Rots from the Head — Book Review

Bob Garratt’s The Fish Rots from the Head: Developing Effective Board Directors is an impassioned treatise on achieving effective corporate governance. Garratt offers an enthusiastic discussion of how boards can develop the requisite skills and approach and defy the potential problems and failings of corporate governance. Garratt particularly focuses on how the serious insufficiencies of some boards have negatively affected or caused the failure of organisations they govern. Garratt asks readers to appreciate the board’s determinative role in the success and effectiveness of an organisation.