board coaching
Teaching Your Board to Be a Board
Board coaching delivered online to help your board overcome any problems that might hamper them from working towards the board’s vision. Development in technology is making it possible to deliver coaching to your full board, no matter where in the world they are.
Why Does My Board Need Coaching?
Boards are fragile ecosystems that need to work together as a cohesive unit to lead an organization. Effective board coaching can help your board find better ways to work together.
A productive board is a necessity for all organizations. Having a board (whether it’s a voluntary or paid board) that’s not productive, will undermine the efficiency of the organization the board has to serve.
Boards often deal with a number of issues. This was highlighted when the Royal Banking Commission in Australia held an inquiry into the dealings of their boards. Nonetheless, the leadership capabilities of boards really came to the forefront when the pandemic hit. Many boards found it difficult to deal with the challenges it posed to their organizations. Other boards flourished and dealt with the challenges in a masterful way.
But whether we are in a pandemic or not, boards are always facing challenges that need to be faced head-on:
- Differences in personalities that cause friction between individual board members, making it difficult to reach consensus on board matters;
- Re-analyzing matters that have already been agreed on;
- A lack of action after decisions have been taken;
- Lack of competence and/or insight when it comes to analyzing and making decisions when it comes to tough financial matters;
- Not being clear on governance issues that involve the organization;
- Having wish lists instead of clear action plans to move the board and the organization forward;
- A lack of vision for the board’s purpose.
For this reason, we have created a coaching framework that will assist your board.
Board Coaching Can Help Your Board
- Onboarding of new board members so they can hit the ground running from the first board meeting
- Succession planning for a smooth transition when Chairs or board members leave
- Finding a shared vision for the board – this is important for the board to move forward as a whole, working towards that vision
- Goal setting that is realistic for both the board and the organization
- Mediation to help in case of serious disputes between board members
- Having effective board meetings that don’t ramble on for hours with no positive outcome.
It is our belief that any person can learn how to be an effective board member. Every board member brings their own set of strengths and capabilities to the board. Through board coaching, we help analyze these strengths and skills. We do this for two reasons:
- To find how board members can complement each other by drawing on each other’s strengths and
- to see what skills and abilities are lacking on a board so that it can either be developed among existing board members or an additional board member can be appointed to fill the gap.
Boards are made up of individual members, so individual board member coaching goes hand-in-hand with board coaching. If you get board coaching for your full board, then as part of the board’s coaching contract, there will be a number of sessions with individual board members. These members do not have to acquire our separate individual coaching product, as their coaching will fall under the same coaching contract as that of the board.
Based in Cape Town, we can offer board coaching for the board as a whole in person anywhere in South Africa. For boards outside Cape Town, virtual board coaching sessions are offered or a travel fee negotiated.
Book a free consultation
Coaching can help your board overcome a number of issues. Book a free consultation to find out how we can coach your board to be the best it can be. Email info@nedcareers.com to arrange your free consultation.