In an earlier blog post, Andy Freed, Virtual’s President, encouraged association boards to avoid “Death by PowerPoint” in order to create more dynamic and productive meetings. Clearly not enough people read his entry. Case in point: Not so long ago I attended a full-day board meeting (which I did not facilitate) that featured 232 slides. (Yes, I counted them.) These 232 slides were distributed across 14 different slide decks. Only 10 of the slides had anything more than bulleted text on them; the 10 “special” slides had tables on them. There were zero graphics altogether. While the intention of this armament of slides was to inform the board about every slice of activity in the organization, in reality it created results that were utterly predictable, if not downright sad.
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Governance
Board Room Health: Ending Slide-Induced Comas
Association’s “To Don’t” List
Today marks 15 years since the publication of one of my favorite business books, Built to Last, by James Collins. Given the title, it’s appropriate that its lessons have been “built to last” as well—having stuck with me for the 15 years since I first read the book.
Collins writes of what it takes to make a company that survives and prospers for more than 50 years. He has examples of companies like Proctor and Gamble, surviving changes that make the changes of today pale by comparison—things like the advent of electricity or the transcontinental railroad. Continue reading »
We All Have Issues
Yes, it’s true.
If you’re an association of any kind, chances are extremely high that at least one of your committees or working groups has a list of open items, or issues. It could be items that the group hasn’t yet reached consensus on, parking lot items that the group hasn’t yet had a chance to discuss, problems that have been identified but not yet resolved, or even an inventory of decisions it has already made. Continue reading »
Five Ways to Get More From Your Board Meeting
I go to over 200 Association Board meetings per year. Some are great. And some, well, a little less than great. As I think about what makes the great one’s work, a few simple rules come to mind Continue reading »
Seven Habits of Highly Effective Boards
The world can change a lot in eight years. Heck, in 2003, Mark Zuckerberg was still a Harvard student.
But it was in 2003 that I first presented to an audience on the topic of “the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Boards.”
It’s a simple list.
It All Starts With the Mission
A mission statement should be more than a plaque on a wall or a footer on a web site—it should be the guiding light for an association’s activity.
Many associations pay little attention to their mission statement—being content to put some words down on a PowerPoint slide and move on. And as for revisiting it, well, that’s something for the “next Board.”
But an effective, relevant mission statement accomplishes several critical things:
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