Resources
The best thinking on boardroom effectiveness
A selection of the most popular articles from our Good Governance archives and our governance thought leadership.
Filters
It happens: a director “hears things” about the Chief Executive. Danger zone. This piece sets out a practical path—verify before acting, keep the whole board involved, focus on organisational impact (not personality), and use a fair, transparent process if an investigation is needed.
Roger Martin keeps strategy practical: define the real problem, explore ‘possibility portraits’, choose what rivals can’t or won’t copy, then enforce—and adjust as conditions change. We’ve summarised his key steps and why they align with policy-driven governance and cascading decisions.
Plenty of organisations invest in developing people—until they reach the boardroom. The data shows many boards still avoid meaningful evaluation, often because it feels uncomfortable. This piece summarises the stats, common pitfalls (from “FIGJAM” to confidentiality fears), and practical steps to make reviews constructive rather than cosmetic.
We often compare the board chair to an orchestral conductor—visible, decisive, keeping perfect time. But what if a choreographer is the better metaphor for modern governance—designing the work, enabling others, and shaping culture without centre-stage control?
General
A great board starts with the right people around the table, able to work as an effective team.
Strategy and Planning
By far the most important governance questions are the strategy ones: Are we deploying resources to maximum effect? And how do we know? John Carver put it more eloquently: Are we producing the right results for the right people at the right cost?
Meetings
It is increasingly common to hear people extolling the benefits of conflict in the boardroom; that conflict is not all negative. That it is no more than an inevitable and potentially beneficial by-product of greater diversity around the table.
Board CEO Relationship, Performance and Reporting
Meetings
We are often asked how frequently a board should meet. Our typical answer is, ‘It depends!’
Meetings
As a new annual cycle of board meetings begins, how many board members can say with confidence that the conduct of their meetings has noticeably improved over the last year or two?
Performance and Reporting
First published in Board Works #6, 2010
Role of the board
This title chosen by Matt Fullbrook for a recent podcast (‘Why good governance is woke and that’s good news for everyone’) was, he said, deliberately provocative.
Performance and Reporting
Released in 2021, the ISO standard largely passed us by—perhaps because of the hefty price tag to purchase it. The standard was developed by ‘experts from 77 countries and 24 liaison bodies’ [1] over several years.
Book review
Aotearoa New Zealand has around 28,000 charities and another 24,000 incorporated societies. Many fit into the small or very small category consistent with this book’s title. When there are no paid staff, or perhaps just one, how do the rules of governance need to vary to get the job done?
Meetings
Sports fans will be well aware that the outcome of a sporting match-up is often determined in the opening phases.
Of the examples of governance dysfunctionality we have encountered over the years, a great many could be attributed to a federal governance structure. Too often trouble with that organisational form attracts public attention and concern well beyond the frustrations and even enmity among those responsible for governing and managing them. In this article we explore some of the challenges of governing a federal organisation structure and point to some ways of moderating the problems many have.
Role of the board
The issue of ‘board-only’ sessions has been a recent topic of discussion for us. They are increasingly common and widely accepted as ‘best practice’ internationally. However, planned opportunities for boards to meet without their chief executive present still cause unease in some organisations.
General
BoardWorks is pleased to have assisted with this major governance review of the New Zealand Rugby Union.
Chair
Without an effective chair, all bets on the adequacy of board performance are off. This has been our consistent observation of the hundreds of boards we have worked with over the last 30 plus years. We are even more certain of this as performance pressures on boards have increased over that time.
Role of the board, Strategy and Planning
The idea that boards have to operate in a VUCA world (short for volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) has been around for so long that it has lost its impact.
This article is drawn from—and is further reflection on—a 2018 major study of value delivery in the non-profit sector in Aotearoa New Zealand: True to Label.
Role of the board
Part One in a series on mental models, thinking and decision making
Strategy and Planning
In an opening statement in their insightful article, Strategy as a Way of Life, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi, former CEOs of two leading American companies and now academics, state that:
Our traditional approach to strategy, based on data and analysis, is at a crossroads in this era of unknown unknowns. The most well-trained AI, built on vast stores of data, information, and knowledge, could not have predicted how the COVID-19 pandemic would affect a world made more open and connected by digital technologies. Can strategy be reframed so that companies can thrive in the face of our current and future challenges? [1]
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