The Savvy Director Blog

This is the first of a series of four Savvy Director articles dealing with various aspects of board and director evaluation. Our next article, “From Evaluation to Action,” will explore key success factors, followed by articles on the topics of individual director evaluations and meeting evaluations.

“How do you take a board that’s good – and make it truly great? How do you take a board that’s great and retain its vibrancy over the years? The answer,...

by Alice Sayant, ICD.D

It seems that lately, everywhere I go, someone is talking about imposter syndrome.

First it was a recent Savvy Saturday online discussion about Cultivating Your Influence in the Boardroom.

Then a conversation with board directors at the inaugural Women Get on Board Summit.

And then, just the other day, a chat with a friend during a brisk walk in the park to mark spring’s arrival (finally!) on the Canadian prairies.

You see where this is going, of course. At ...

One of my favorite things about my role at DirectorPrep is that, when I come across a new idea or an interesting concept in the world of board governance, I get to share it with our Savvy Director readers.

That’s how today’s blog came about. While researching an entirely different topic, I came across a series of articles from the Institute of Directors of New Zealand (IoD NZ) about applying the principles and practices of design thinking in the boardroom.

I found the concepts...

Would you agree that staying on top of technology developments shouldn’t be left to the one tech-fluent director on your board?

Just as it’s no longer acceptable to defer all the responsibility for understanding the financial statements to the accountant on the board, I feel that keeping up with the techies has to become a shared responsibility for all board directors.

It’s pretty clear to me that all directors need to have their heads in the tech game – at least well...

by Alice Sayant, ICD.D

“When most people think of high-performing teams, they think of sports teams, trauma center professionals, or fire department crews. They rarely think of … boards. Still, if you want an exceptional...

“Patience is the art of concealing your impatience.” – Guy Kawasaki, American marketing specialist

When we asked our Savvy Director readers, “What boardroom skills do you want to have help with?” a number of you responded with variations on the themes of how to exercise more patience, how to be more tolerant, and – to be brutally direct – how not to get frustrated with other directors.

I get it. Sometimes, after an unsatisfying board meeting,...

We often hear from readers looking for ways to elevate their boardroom discussions to a more strategic level. That makes sense. Strategic discussions are more interesting, forward thinking, and robust than those that drill down into the minutiae of operations.

When the agenda and reading material don’t reflect the organization’s high level strategy - instead being filled with pages of execution detail and ‘busy work’ metrics - is it any wonder directors slow the...