Maximizing Board Effectiveness: A Practical Guide for Effective Governance

by James C. Galvin

Are you frustrated during board meetings? Far too many boards are ineffective. Far too many board members are confused about their role. This book changes the conversation on governance and clarifies the confusion by organizing all boards into just three managing, governing, and navigating. You will learn to determine precisely which type your board is, identify pitfalls, and confidently lead the way to increasing your board’s net contribution to the organization it serves. The author is highly experienced as a board consultant and provides practical, common sense strategies that work. He addresses typical board dysfunctions and shares best practices that any board can put into practice immediately to maximize their effectiveness—now and in the future.LEARN • Determine what type of board you are and what type you want to become• Help your board be more effective, no matter what type of board you have and regardless of your position• Address and eliminate board dysfunction

193 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 14, 2020

Reviews

[CatReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently got appointed to a nonprofit's board of directors so I've been looking for resources to help me become more effective in this role. Business consultant James Galvin's book Maximizing Board Effectiveness was a useful first book for me. Galvin talks about three general types of boards (managing boards, governing boards, and navigating boards) and how each can collectively be effective or ineffective. Briefly, managing boards directly manage an organization (often these nonprofits have no paid staff); governing boards create policies but don't directly manage (as these nonprofits have paid and experienced staff), and navigating boards oversee strategic inflections in organizations -- so each of these board types needs to behave quite differently to best meet their organizations' needs.

Though the focus isn't on how individual board members can be effective, I still found this a useful high level overview on how boards function (or don't).

My statistics:
Book 290 for 2024
Book 1893 cumulatively

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are basically three types of boards; it's most helpful to know your type and to strategize for effectiveness from there.

***
This was a helpful book, but I'm not sure how broadly accessible it is. A person would need to be a repeat or serial board participant for this book to have value. They're also going to need to be willing to take responsibilty for strategy and direction of the boards they're a part of. I found it helpful and will most likely return to it; but I'm not sure who else I would suggest read the book.

[Ron Mackey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simple, but important concepts missed by many boards.