How boards work
Governance principles, board roles, assurance and meetings.
A half day on how boards work: governance principles and duties, the chair and chief executive, the board's role in strategy, risk and assurance, and preparing and running effective meetings.
- Level
- Explore
- Learning time
- 5 hours
- Where
- Boards and governance
- Price
- £129
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
New and aspiring board members, trustees, non-executives and committee chairs in public service and the voluntary sector
Overview
Governance is a discipline in its own right, not management wearing a suit. The first half of the Immerse A seat at the table begins with the board's eight core duties, Garratt's strategic board, the Cadbury Report and the Nolan Principles, with the John Lewis Partnership as a case. It turns to the chair and chief executive, from Sir John Harvey-Jones at ICI to Kodak's board and Berne's transactional analysis. Strategy follows, with McNulty and Pettigrew's spectrum and the contrast of Nokia and Netflix, then risk, where Carillion shows the gap between language and practice. It concludes with Lencioni's four meeting types, Kaner's Diamond of Participation and Kline's Thinking Environment.
Aims
The intention is to help new board members understand governance as a craft from the start: reading their board's duties clearly, working well with the chair and chief executive, testing a strategy before they believe it and preparing for meetings that help the room decide well.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Explain the board's core duties and the principles behind good governance, from the Cadbury Report to the Nolan Principles.
- Assess a strategy before the board endorses it, using McNulty and Pettigrew's spectrum and the contrast of Nokia and Netflix.
- Plan an agenda and meeting that help the board decide well, using Lencioni's meeting types, Kaner's Diamond of Participation and Kline's Thinking Environment.
What you'll develop
Across this Explore, you will develop the ability to:
- Distinguish a governance question from a management question and explain the board's eight core duties in plain terms.
- Describe the chair's four part role and the obligations chair and chief executive owe each other, and explain why the relationship needs both warmth and distance.
- Explain the board's four strategic roles and place your own board honestly on the spectrum from ratify to co-create.
- Explain the board's role in setting the risk tone and testing that it holds, as distinct from management's job of managing risk.
- Identify which of Lencioni's four meeting types fits a conversation and recognise the common signs of a mismatch.
- Plan a meeting opening and run each agenda item using the five moves of frame, clarify, debate, test and record.
- Use Garratt's strategic board and Galbraith's star model to assess whether a board's roles and structure are coherent and deliberately chosen.
- Apply the core craft skills of chairing across the meeting cycle to draw out the room's best thinking and avoid common pitfalls.
Built from 6 modules.
5 hours of learning.
- 01Foundations: Principles, Structures and Processes of Good GovernanceGood Governance59 min
- 02The Chair, the Chief Executive and the BoardGood Governance58 min
- 03Strategy and the Board's RoleGood Governance49 min
- 04Risk, Assurance and OversightGood Governance48 min
- 05Before the Meeting: Agenda, Papers and PreparationChairing Meetings, Boards and Committees38 min
- 06In the Room: Structuring Discussion and Reaching DecisionsChairing Meetings, Boards and Committees42 min