High-Impact Governing in a Nutshell

If governing is playing a leading role in making fundamental organizational decisions, what do I mean by high-impact governing? The following characteristics of high-impact governing boards are primarily based on my hands-on experience in working with hundreds of governing boards, but they are also validated by the reported experience of other students and practitioners. These characteristics make up what I call the "high-impact governing model," which you can use as a guide in building your board's governing capacity, fleshing out and adapting the elements to your organization's unique circumstances and capacities.

High-impact boards add significant value to their organizations.

Above all else, the governing work that high-impact boards do adds significant value to their organizations; the boards make a real difference that can be measured in terms of organizational performance, and organizational influence. An organization would suffer if its high-impact board vanished from the scene! In doing this high-impact governing work, these boards tend to play a leading, proactive role rather than merely serving as an audience for staff work; they are initiators and generators more than reactors.

High-impact boards pay attention to their members.

They take pains to get the right people on the board and to develop board members' capacity to participate in governing at a high level. In doing their governing work, high-impact boards capitalize on the resources that their members bring to the boardroom: their experience, expertise, knowledge, skills, and networks of associations. The members of high-impact boards are fully engaged in their governing work and tend to be satisfied with their roles.

High-impact boards are treated as a precious asset.

The whole strategic leadership team—the board, CEO, and senior managers—consider the board a precious organizational asset capable of making a powerful contribution to organizational stability, performance, and future growth. The damage control philosophy is absent.

High-impact boards are seen as organizations.

These boards are seen as organizations within their parent nonprofit corporations that can be designed, rather than merely carried from the past into the future.

High-impact boards are guided by a governing mission.

They have a detailed governing mission that sets forth clearly their intended governing impacts and broadly describes how they are to function as a governing body.

High-impact boards are explicitly designed to govern.

They are consciously, explicitly designed to carry out their governing mission and to produce a significant impact: they have a firm grasp of the "products" (principally decisions) that they need to devote significant time to generating. Their governing work, governing structure, governing processes, the resources required to carry out the processes , and even their internal culture are defined in detail. No member of a high-impact board ever wonders what exactly to do or how the board's work is accomplished.

High-impact boards are structured to govern.

Their structure (the standing committees) directly supports the demands of governing rather than merely reflecting programs and administrative functions.

High-impact boards are supported by CEOs who take accountability for board capacity building.

The CEOs of high-impact boards take personal accountability for board capacity building, making it a top-tier leadership priority, and play a strong, hands-on role in helping their boards to keep their governing models updated.

High-impact boards are involved in their own design.

They are involved in the design process that updates their governing model, as a major means for building board understanding, ownership, and commitment.

High-impact boards take accountability for their performance.

They set detailed board member performance standards and monitor board member performance.

The high-impact governing model is within the reach of any board—whatever its composition or circumstances. However, many boards fall far short of their leadership potential for a number of very good reasons.

Source: www.nais.org · Excerpted from "Extraordinary Board Leadership: The Seven Keys to High-Impact Governance", (pgs 5-7) by Doug Eadie · Reprinted with permission by Aspen Publishers, Inc. © 2001. For additional information, please contact Aspen Publishers, Inc at www.aspenpublishers.com or Doug Eadie at www.DougEadie.com