A Leading Solution to Real Board Effectiveness

Your auto mechanic can affirm that your car will not operate effectively if the front wheels are not aligned effectively. Your chiropractor will agree that your body will not function as effectively as it could if it isn’t properly aligned. The coach of your local high school football team knows that if players do not clearly know their roles and how those roles align with the players next to them that they have little chance of victory on Friday night. Should it then be of any surprise to us that when our board of directors and executive team are not aligned, we cannot achieve all the effectiveness that we desire?

For the last 40 years we have determined whether or not boards of directors of organizations were doing what they should by asking them, “Are you a governance board?” What the question is really asking is, “Have you adopted policy governance?” Policy governance is indeed the only measurement of a board of directors’ development; the only metric for a successful board is whether or not it had developed governing policies. Oddly enough, even those that could answer yes to the question, still felt as though that they were not being very effective as a board. Well, they were correct, because the truth is, governing policies are a tool, not a solution. The solution to real board effectiveness is alignment; alignment with its executive and alignment with its stakeholders. Alignment comes from definition of clear, unique roles for both the board and the executive and the understanding of how those unique roles align with and complement the roles of the other. Then and only then can governing policies be created that document those roles and relationships and you can achieve true board effectiveness. If you’re ready to develop a healthier, aligned board of directors and increase the effectiveness of your entire organization, visit www.alignedinfluence.com to learn how to get started.