Nonprofit Performance 360 Magazine Vol 4 No 4

Rule II: How DoYou KnowYou Have the RightTalent Mix onYour Board? Ballou —

Magee — Start with your internal board of directors: do you have a specific real-time job description or position responsibilities statement for each position? Or do you just have a mix of people and no real defined roles? You can get templates for board position statements from your trade associations or professional trade groups like Association for Talent Development ( www.td.org ), Society for Human Resource Management ( www.shrm.org ), VISTAGE ( www.vistage.com ), and ExecRanks ( www.execrank.com ), the leading boarding certification and search organization in America today. Use these resource- leading organizations to create very specific task, credentials, and pedigree expectations for anyone serving on your board now or for candidates to possess in the future. Your board members should be rock-stars and serve as a calibrator for greatness to your daily staffers, managers and executives. The mix on your board should equal the core operating entities within your organization. If you have true subject matter expert leaders on your board so that you can draw a line from them to core leadership positions, you win. Magee — Leaders are learners, and great board members are students. This means that your board should be hungry for board development opportunities, they must be engaged, they must listen and advise, and give great counsel to you and your senior team, not just be head- nodding validators to everything you do and say. Join the SynerVision® online Community for Community Builders and get the following: • Resource articles on best practice for nonprofit leaders and clergy • Interview with th ught-leaders on business practices to install i your charity • Forums on topics relevant to nonprofit leaders, boards, and staff • Regular facilitated mastermind sessions guided by Hugh Ballou (“Leader” Level) • ree subscription to Nonprofit Professional Performance 360 Mag zine • Discounts on online learning programs and live events

Taking the competencies defined in the strategy, develop a definition of role and responsibility for each board member along with performance expectations. Each board member should have a working position in their defined skills set with defined performance expectations.The leader cultivates a culture in which work happens between meetings, with reporting at the meetings. With clear deliverables for each project led by a board member, there will be opportunities for the board members to collaborate from their different teams and projects to make the work more effective and efficient for everyone. Combining talents is also a way to maximize outcomes. If there’s a mismatch with board assignments, there should be the opportunity for the board members to switch roles and responsibilities to be in a better place that’s a right fit for their skill. From time to time, the board should conduct a self-evaluation to review its performance, looking at several areas: skills, systems, engagement, and contributions, and then develop a plan of action for improvement in each area.

Rule III: IsYour Board Only as Good asYour Last Board Development? Ballou —

If the leader of the organization is consistently working on their own personal improvement, then they will influence others in the organization to do likewise. It’s also important to develop guiding principles around what’s commonly called capacity building for the board, which is leadership development for individuals and for the board as an entity.

Join the SynerVision® online Community for Community Builders and get the following:  Resource articles on best practice for nonprofit leaders and clergy  Interview with thought- leaders on business practices to install in your charity  Forums on topics relevant to nonprofit leaders, boards, and staff  Regular facilitated mastermind sessions guided by Hugh Ballou (“Leader” Level)  Free subscription to Nonprofit Professional Performance 360 Magazine SynerVision Community  Discounts on online learning programs and live events Here’s the overview of the benefits of community membership synervisionleadership.org/welcome-to-the-community-for-community-builders Here’s the overview of the benefits of community membership s ervisionl adership.org/welcome-to-the-com u it -for-community-builders

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