04/16/2024

A Faster Path to Better Boards

Leaders often start board service poorly oriented on governance

Becoming a board member is relatively straightforward at most associations. You demonstrate expertise in a profession, volunteer with the association that serves it, then make your way through the association’s particular governance pipeline to get a board seat.

Becoming a good, strategy-minded board member is often another matter, though. Boards don’t always come in with a solid grounding of the work they’re being asked to do, or how to do it. That can lead to divisiveness, inaction, and even outright toxicity. Last month I participated in an Association Forum of Chicagoland webinar on the topic; much of the conversation turned on the importance of solid onboarding processes.

But as long as I’ve been covering associations, leaders have struggled to get their boards to fully grasp their responsibilities. Mark Engle, DM, FASAE, CAE, principal of Association Management Center (and who helps run ASAE’s Exceptional Boards program), has recently been trying to address that on two fronts. First, he’s been working on something close to a one-size-fits-all introductory video that walks board members through the basics of their duties. It’s not a video AMC shares publicly, but it does a fine job of clarifying the duties specific to boards—in under ten minutes.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Associations Now.