Building Better Governance series March - May

Transcription

1 Building Better Governance series March - May 2017 Centre for Charity Effectiveness CassCCE@city.ac.uk

2 Welcome back Catch up and brief reflections on last night s session. On your tables for 5 minutes, what did you take away from yesterday, what did it make you think about?

3 This morning s session What is Board Evaluation, how it has developed, why we think it s key to board effectiveness Exploring your current board evaluation activities Considering 2 issues Some results from our wide scale hospice board development programme on effective boards

4 Our definition of board evaluation Centre for Charity Effectiveness Assessing and measuring board performance across a range of areas including collective and individual performance / behaviours and the overall practice, systems and structures of governance. To be effective, it requires learning from what works well, what could be done better and and taking deliberate actions to improve

5 Development of board evaluation practice - corporate sector Relatively recent activity Globalism & competiveness developments in performance management

6 Board appraisal corporate sector Centre for Charity Effectiveness Listed companies in the UK are now required to report that board appraisal has been undertaken Combined Code the board should undertake a formal & rigorous evaluation of its own performance, that of its committees & individual directors

7 The nonprofit sector - recommended practice Code of Good Governance (2010) Principle 3 includes periodically reviewing performance both as individuals & as a team ACEVO recommends board performance reviews every 2 yrs. (Realising the potential of governance, 2013) OSCR Protecting charitable status checklist good practice to review the charity, its constitution, activities & governance arrangements on a regular basis as a matter of good practice

8 What the literature says Organisations that regularly review their arrangements rate their resulting governance more highly Reports of dissatisfaction with governance practice Associated with board effectiveness Ensures a feedback loop of review & improvement Builds an improvement culture & encourages a conversation

9 Research findings Insights from the boards of larger charities Survey results: > 100m ALL undertake governance reviews 25m - 100m. 86% < 25m 50% Delivering Effective Governance: insights from the boards of larger charities (2012) Compass/Cass

10 Formal Self assessment Governance review Internal External Ad hoc reviews Self assessment against a framework such as the Code of Good Governance Informal

11 Exploring your practice Centre for Charity Effectiveness In your groups using the prepared sheet discuss and note down the key activities your boards undertake in terms of INDIVIDUAL & COLLECTIVE (TRUSTEE & BOARD) performance review / evaluation What can you learn from others are doing? What practice might you introduce as a result? Are you stronger in the individual performance review area (or collective) and why is this?

12 Research findings Board evaluation / performance review activities. in top 20 drivers of effective governance performance i.e. boards that: Spend time discussing the performance of governance Hold formal reviews of governance Review performance of members before re-election Review individual board members performance Delivering Effective Governance: insights from the boards of larger charities (2012) Compass/Cass

13 Learning from our Hospice BDP: Understanding of role is at the heart of good governance A more strategic focus Consideration of the right skills and behaviours Liberating time on the agenda Improved board performance Individual & team development and review

14 Benefits of board performance review Centre for Charity Effectiveness Culture development (and maintenance of) Awareness raising of good governance Trustee input & influence Ownership Team development

15 GROUP WORK On your tables, explore and note the BARRIERS (resistance) to introducing board evaluation/appraisal (a)individual (b)collective (whole board) reviews What ENABLERS will help your board overcome such barriers?

16 Resistance We re only volunteers Uncomfortable peer review Horizontal (governance) v vertical (employment) Opening a Pandora s Box Interrupts the board s collegiality Takes time from the limited time we have together as a board

17 In pairs Role responsibilities What s the Chair s role in introducing (collective or individual) performance review? What does the Chair need to be saying and doing to ensure effective performance review of the board? What s the Chief Executive s role? And the role of other trustees?

18 WHAT REALLY HELPS WHEN INTRODUCING BOARD PERFORMANCE REVIEW Positivity of the Chair A budget Agreement on the purpose of the exercise Role profile & expectations (supported by) A plan with regular review & encouragement for a culture of continuous review and development

19 Getting started a quick win Centre for Charity Effectiveness End of meeting reviews.. You could ask qs such as: What have we learnt (from this meeting) that we didn t know before? What have we achieved that would not have happened had we not met? What have we agreed that will impact on the org. in 5 yrs time? What was the most useful item we discussed? What was the least useful item? How did we perform as a team? What will we do differently next time? Perhaps agreeing what qs would be most useful based on your own particular circumstances

20 In summary, some characteristics shared by effective boards: Constant conversation about the future Open two-way communications Foster an adaptive capacity Trustees who are both specialist and generalist Structure a focus on generative thinking Review own performance

21 a final thought Centre for Charity Effectiveness Change is not a matter of a quick fix and sporadic efforts cannot substitute for the day to day hard work of acting on commitments to improve performance in every meeting Board Accountability Lessons from the Field Thomas P. Holland ( )John Wiley & Sons

22 And another A successful board cannot guarantee that a company will be successful but can make a huge contribution to it being so. An unsuccessful board will mean that at best the company does not reach its potential and at worst, it is destroyed Sir Andrew Likierman Measuring the Success of the Board (2014) London Business School

23 Series programme: coming up Centre for Charity Effectiveness