Do you find yourself as a trustee or leadership team member of a small charity grappling with the complexities of board governance?
Fear not, you aren’t alone. Clive Bawden, Director of Governance360 shares five straightforward and actionable tips drawn from his own practical experience as a Charity Trustee as well as from his work with Governance360 that will improve the ability of your Board to function more effectively.
1. Consider training your board and making it part of your culture
Rules change, the outside world changes faster (think AI…) and hence even as an accomplished, experienced leader it is surprising how hard it can be to keep up with what’s new.
Some Boards we work with focus on training for new Directors and Trustees, often at the induction phase. Which is crucial for sure. But what happens then?
Training your board members doesn’t have to cost a lot, and having a board that knows its stuff can make a big difference. So don’t stop at induction – make it an ongoing thing, whether in the Board time itself or in between. This will not only make the Board more effective and helpful, but it will also energise the Board members themselves (as who doesn’t like improving and developing) plus in theory make it easier to find new Trustees in time as they will be able to see not only where they fit in but also where they will develop and learn.
2. Keep checking in on the skills and capabilities of the Board and its members
Board members benefit from having a range of abilities. Some might excel in all areas, while others may shine in a few – and a handful might struggle across the board… (apologies for the terrible dad joke!).
Keep in mind that being an expert in their field doesn’t make someone automatically a great board member. In fact, it can be a blind spot, particularly if you aren’t enforcing term limits or rotating board members actively to refresh the independence and scrutiny of the Board.
Your board should grow and change along with your business. It’s tough to bring up, but doing a formal review to check if your board is still useful, still has the right skills and where the gaps lie in an ever changing world can make it easier to talk about what to do next and have those ‘difficult conversations’ before it becomes too late.
3. Look at what others are doing and take the good ideas
Checking out what other people are up to can be helpful – it’s hard to see what’s good and bad about your board when you’re too close to it.
A great way to learn about others is to chat with a Director or Trustee from another company. Ask them what they’ve learned, both themselves and as a whole board, and get their advice for your own path.
You can take this advice or leave it; it might not fit you or your business. But as you talk to more people, you’ll see a pattern that could help shape your future decisions.
This is another reason why we are so proud to be working with ACE – it offers brilliant networking and collaboration opportunities to members and their teams – seize them, pick up the phone and chat issues through with their team and the membership.
4. (Critically…) Help your Chair
Being a good chair needs special skill!
At first, people often pick a chair from a group because they are the easy choice (often the longest serving member in our experience), but this might not be smart in the long run. When you’re looking at how your chair works, think about these things:
- Strengths and weaknesses – People often overlook the shortcomings of the chairperson. You need to check if they have the right skills; if not, think about training them (see point one) or looking at other choices.
- Feedback – Your chairperson should get regular input on how to get better. You might ask a non-executive director to do a regular review. The non-executive can do a full 360-degree check by getting input from everyone on the Board.
- Support – I see a lot of volunteer organisations that put a lot on one individual, most obviously by not appointing a Vice Chair and thinking about succession. Spreading the workload can be enormously helpful to make this an active strategy, not least since it will help you with succession when the time comes for the Chair to move on.
5. Set up an onboarding process
When you welcome a new employee to your organisation, chances are that they will go through an onboarding process. This helps them to blend into the company faster and more.
I’m always puzzled therefore why this approach isn’t followed more by voluntary organisations – it should, after all, work well for new board members too. Put together an info pack about the company’s operations, set up meetings with key managers, and give them a quick rundown of the company’s history and future goals. This will:
- Help keep things consistent
- Help spot gaps in people’s knowledge
- Make you look more professional
- Help newcomers learn about your work, so they can make a bigger impact in the meetings they join.
Conclusion
Making a Board function effectively isn’t a one-off process – it takes time, requires workflow and continual checking in on and can be easily overlooked whilst you fire fight operationally.
Hopefully you will have gained from these tips some simple things that you can apply to your own organisation. I’d love to hear how you get on and/or your feedback on the tips above – feel free to contact me at clive@governance360.com if you’d like to provide your views.
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