The Savvy Director Blog

Last week’s blog dealt with board succession. If you read that post (A Better Way to Fill Board Seats), then you know I’m an advocate of treating board succession as an ongoing process of planned renewal.

Maybe you also noticed that we glossed over the whole topic of actually selecting the right director for your board – a process that is complicated enough to merit its own separate blog post.

So, let’s delve into the topic of board recruitment now.

Pinpointing What Your Board Needs Righ...

Does this sound familiar?

A long-standing, knowledgeable and well-respected director will soon be stepping off your board. This will create a vacant board seat.

Once the board becomes aware of this impending departure, a board committee is tasked with finding a good candidate to fill the seat. The committee scrambles to interview a few candidates and recommend one of them to the board.

The board rubber stamps the committee recommendation and – bingo! – there’s a new board member at the table....

Once you’ve established yourself as a director on one board, you may very well find that you’re being approached to serve on one or more additional boards.

Is saying “yes” a good idea? What should you think about before deciding? And what is the ideal number of boards to serve on?

As so often with the topics we explore in The Savvy Director, the answer is, “It depends.” In this case, it depends on some very personal considerations, such as the stage of your career, your family situation, an...

At its core, a board of directors is the ultimate decision-making body for an organization. The board’s ability to make sound decisions based on consideration of reliable facts, coupled with the good judgment of its individual members, is a key element of organizational success.

That makes it important to understand the factors that lead to good decision-making as well as those that detract from it. One risk to good decision-making is what’s known as decision fatigue. The term refers to the d...

You’ve read the material. You’ve seen the presentation. You’ve listened to management’s request. Now it’s time for the board to make a decision. It’s an important decision, too. You’re expecting a robust discussion.

But the room is quiet. Maybe a couple of directors ask a question or two, just for clarification. Now it looks like the board chair is about to call for a vote.

What’s going on? Groupthink, that’s what. Your board has fallen victim to Groupthink.

We’ve all been there, at one tim...

“Conflict is inevitable, combat is optional.” – Max Lucado, US author

As a board director, I find there’s nothing like robust boardroom debate to get me really engaged. After all, that’s what we’re there for, isn’t it? To wrestle with big, important issues; to help guide the organizations we care about around dangers and into a bright future; to make sound decisions in the interests of all our stakeholders.

But what about when the debate is not so healthy, when it degenerates into disrup...

Recently, our local newspaper ran a column about the importance of character in our political leaders. It got me thinking about how important it is for board directors to “be of good character.”

Character is a foundation for effective decision-making. That makes it vital for board directors. Sure, directors’ competencies determine what they can do, and their commitment affects how hard they work, but it’s their character that drives how they make important decisions, not just in the boardroom...

We say it all the time – ‘Preparation is the key to success in the boardroom.’ That’s why we call our company DirectorPrep. That’s why our tagline is ‘Ready for your board meeting?’

And that’s why we developed the PREP Framework that provides individual directors with a consistent, repeatable process to prepare for board meetings. We want to support directors to be ready for their board meeting every time. (Visit the PREP for Success page on our website to download the PREP Framework.)

Bein...

In our last Savvy Director blog, we explored how a director may incur personal liability because of their board service. Practicing due diligence is all well and good, but a director’s actions or inactions may still expose them to litigation and penalties. That’s why companies provide their directors with protection through indemnification.

Well-crafted Directors and Officers (D&O) insurance provides an additional line of defense. As a director, it’s a good idea not just to confirm that there...

When you join a board of directors, and throughout your service on the board, you probably won’t give much thought to the personal financial risk you’ve taken on. And yet, a past board decision could come back to haunt you.

In general, the legal structure of a corporation provides you with protection from personal liability. But that protection is limited. There are instances where directors are held personally liable for a company’s violations of laws or regulations. The possibility of being...