Articles

Thoughts and perspectives on how organizations can achieve strong policy governance.

Governance Solutions

WHAT’S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT GOVERNANCE? We Need “New” Solutions People seem to believe that the status quo still isn’t working because they...

7 Measures of Success: What Remarkable Associations Do That Others Don’t

Many of us in the nonprofit sector eagerly awaited the publication of this book by The Center for Association Leadership. The book is a...

Is It Time to Assess Your Environment?

Assessing Organizational Ends Starts with Questions – Not Answers In his book “Good to Great”, Jim Collins offers this wisdom for CEO’s:...

Do I need a professional facilitator?

Insights into group dynamics are essential to facilitators to successfully accomplish the purpose of the meeting. Facilitators should...

On board service

Dear Association Executive: Recently on the American Society of Association Executive’s (ASAE) Executive Section listserv, there have...

Organizational Culture: Open or Closed?

Culture in an organization is comprised of shared values, goals, norms and processes. One overarching theme uncovered in studying...

Blog Journey

This writing was originally published in the International Policy Governance Association newsletter for board leaders and governance...

What do nonprofit governing boards do?

Defining governance is not easy. If you google “definition on governance,” you will find over 500,000 entries. Governance is a generic...

A Failure of Leadership

Last week, President Obama spoke of a “failure of leadership” at GM. What happens to GM affects their employees, vendors, retirees,...

Twittering?…follow this!

Terrance Barkan asks: “Is ‘Social Media’ going to significantly change your organization?” Take the short 12-question survey! What do you...

Averting a crisis due to lack of funding

Those of you who know me know that I’m a big fan of Thomas Friedman. His book, The World is Flat” changed all of my perceptions about the...

Horse sense for people

From Rick Lamb of The Horse Show came the following gem. People in groups have similar focus issues! When I read this, I thought that...

Democracy is messy

Last night, President Obama said that democracy is messy. Democracy is messy. Governing boards represent democracy in action and the...

Governance is a new word to many

An acquaintance asked me yesterday what I do. “I work with board and executive leaders on a system of governance that helps them get rid...

Update to: Cooperation, collaboration, or coopetition…whatever works.

An update to what was written here. This group is still together but we’ve moved beyond Policy Governance to conceptualizing what it...

Lessons on Policy Governance® from The Little Red Hen

The Little Red Hen was an industrious little hen. From a few seeds, she had a vision of a beautifully golden, richly fragrant loaf of...

ROI on Social Media?

Reading Scott Stratten’s book on Unmarketing. His take on ROI for social media (about it giving him ulcers!) resonates with me. As it did...

Geographically dispersed boards

Most of my client teams (board and staff leaders) are geographically dispersed. As an organizational and governance consultant, I give...

Would you buy 30-year-old technology?

The ad reads: “Car ‘phones. They’re no longer the privilege of the chosen few.” In 1982, I actually had one of these Vodaphone babies. I...

Diary of a distracted blogger

The first thing you’ll note about my blogroll is that until this post, my home page is like Grandma’s attic: full of stuff from long ago…...