Best Board Books #1: Boards That Lead

Board members and CEOs often ask me to recommend the best book on board governance. Of course—one size doesn’t fit all. There is no one “perfect” book for every board. It depends on many factors, as Dan Busby and I point out in “Lesson 38: Great Boards Delegate Their Reading” in Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom.

How would you rate your current board members’ competencies and experiences?
• Do most have previous board experiences that were healthy (not dysfunctional)?
• Does your board agree where they are on the continuum from Policy Governance® to hands-on boards? 
• Is there alignment with the 10 or more traditional roles and responsibilities of the board?

Your answers would help me suggest the “best” book for you—whether for everyone to read before your next board retreat, or for a quick “10 Minutes for Governance” book review by one board member at your next board meeting.

Over the coming weeks, I’ll suggest some of the most insightful books on board governance—some “secular” and some Christ-centered. Pick one that fits your board’s culture and needs.

BOOK #1: Boards That Lead: When to Take Charge, When to Partner, and When to Stay Out of the Way, by Ram Charan, Dennis Carey and Michael Useem

You can read my book review by clicking here. Here’s a taste: Learning boards will discover vast insights and practical next steps in Boards That Lead:

   • Boards should ask new CEOs to draft a succession plan immediately (and the annual self-assessment should measure progress).
   • Caution! Leaders can change dramatically when they get the brass ring.
   • Nothing can make up for the wrong choice of CEO.
   • Ten principles for finding the right CEO (Warning: “Review outside consultants carefully to prevent conflicts of interest.”)
   • In risk management, why quantification alone is a false crutch.
   • The value of a one-pager with agenda/decision highlights sent before every meeting
   • The learned art of what to feed to the board
   • How to coach new board members to stay at the right “altitude” in board meetings
   • How to get maximum value from an advisory council or board (They quote Roger Kenny who says advisory boards are “like the Marines: They get you on the beach.”)

And then this PowerPoint-worthy wisdom: 

“Execution is where management starts and the board stops.”

BOARD DISCUSSION: Is our CEO “feeding us” the appropriate and right amount of information, inspiration, and context for our “heavy lifting” topics prior to each board meeting. What do you appreciate? What would improve this process?

MORE RESOURCES: Follow the “40 Blogs. 40 Wednesdays.” color commentaries on Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom. Click here.

Called to Serve: Be a Frantic Learner!

Note: This is No. 17 in a series of blogs featuring wisdom from the 91-page gem by Max De Pree, Called to Serve: Creating and Nurturing the Effective Volunteer Board.

Max De Pree: “Be a frantic learner. Feel a strong obligation to learn everything you can about your organization’s history, about its vision, its mission, its present circumstances, and the people in it.”

But wait…be a frantic learner about what? And what else?

Here are four more topics where “frantic learning” will pay rich dividends:

#1. Be a frantic learner about Governance 101. Many highly competent people enter board service through the volunteer door and—no surprise—inappropriately wear their volunteer hats in the boardroom and—without thinking—wear their governance hats when volunteering. Be a frantic learner and view the ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 2: Balancing Board Roles—Understanding the 3 Board Hats: Governance, Volunteer, Participant.   

#2. Be a frantic learner about policy governance. Some boards claim they operate with a “Policy Governance®” model, but in my experience, few do. (And not every board should.) I encourage boards to understand the continuum between “Policy Governance®” and hands-on/in-the-weeds board governance. At least one person on your board should be a frantic learner and read Boards That Make a Difference: A New Design for Leadership in Nonprofit Organizations, by John Carver.
    
#3. Be a frantic learner about dating board prospects. Inviting a friend-of-a-friend-of-Cousin Eddie to serve on your board (“He is wealthy!”) might fill a slot at the last minute, but the best boards take 18 to 36 months to “date” board prospects before proposing marriage. Be a frantic learner and view the ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 1: Recruiting Board Members—Leveraging the 4 Phases of Board Recruitment: Cultivation, Recruitment, Orientation and Engagement.

#4. Be a frantic learner about spiritually discerning God’s voice. It’s possible that your board is skilled at decision-making, but not discernment. Bill Hybels notes, “…I meet many people who claim to have never heard the promptings or whispers of God. Not even once. Sometimes when I probe a little deeper, I discover that their lives are so full of noise that they can’t possibly hear the Holy Spirit when he speaks.”

So when your board is faced with that critical fork-in-the-road decision when you must spiritually discern God’s voice—what if your board is made up of individuals, who in their own lives “have never heard the promptings or whispers of God?” Big problem! Be a frantic learner and read The Power of a Whisper: Hearing God. Having the Guts to Respond, by Bill Hybels.

BOARD EXERCISE: Before you order your next “everyone read this book before the board retreat,” take time to discern where frantic learning is needed. Seek God’s voice—not the hype from the bestsellers list.

To order from Amazon, click on the title for: Called to Serve: Creating and Nurturing the Effective Volunteer Board, by Max De Pree, (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company).