Improving Governance — a Shift from Structure to Engagement

The focus of governance improvement activities for the past 10 years or so has been on board structure. According to John Combs the President of the Center for Healthcare Governance board effectiveness , there is a shift in thinking about  how to enable boards to be more effective. For the past 10 to 15 years governance experts believed that the best way to enable a board to be high performing is about making sure that the board is well structured. From this point of view the key questions included:

• How large is the board? Is there an optimum size for the board to be more effective?
• How many committees should the board have and are the roles and responsibilities of those committees clear?
• Does the board have clear policies and practices about it’s role and the role of the chief executive?

You get the idea. With the right structure in place,  an improvement in the board’s effectiveness was a likely consequence. I think that the changes in the new IRS Form 990 are based on this assumption. The focus of the new 990 is on ensuring that certain governance policy and practices are in place. My research on governance and the development of the governance partnership theory was based on this assumption as well.

Dr. Comb pointed out in a session on Governance at the 2010 American College of Healthcare Executives‘  Congress on Healthcare Leadership in Chicago, that there is a movement towards competency-based governance. And this focus is not on the competency of the board as a whole; it is on the competency of the individual directors and trustees.

The shift is from focusing on the right board structure to ensuring that we have the right people on the board. The central benefit of Competency-based governance is that with the right directors and trustees in place the board will work  together…effectively. This shift in  focus, according to Dr.  Combs, will help directors and trustees become more effective partners in the leadership of the organization.  The Center has released a copy of the  Blue Ribbon Panel report that focused on Competency-based Governance that you can download at no cost.

The bottom line is that effective governance is dependent on the full engagement of the board of directors. When boards are engaged, mission outcomes will be achieved and organization performance will improve. We should expect no less!

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Policy Governance Model and the Role of the Board Member Ends and the Ownership J B Carver Board Governance Series Volume 2 by Carver Governance Design Inc – 5 Star Review.pdf (slideshare.net)
• Governance Structure (slideshare.net)
• Mission Driven Boards (slideshare.net)