Board members play a crucial part in governance, fostering accountability, and shaping the future direction of the organization. It can be challenging to manage a large number of people at all career stages especially in a physical location such as a board meeting.
One of the biggest challenges for boards is navigating how to oversee management without interfering or micromanaging. To help, it’s important that board members know the distinction between high-level policy and lower-level management policy. It’s also important that the board has a good relationship with management and that it has clearly outlined how it plans to share its decision-making with management.
It is a good idea to schedule regular updates via calling board members for seven to ten days prior to the upcoming board meeting. This allows the board to preview any issues that are likely to be on the agenda and ensures that bad news doesn’t get presented for the first time at the meeting itself.
Another important aspect is to focus on developing guidelines that clearly define the blog boardofdirectors.info roles of the management, the board and medical staff. Effectively executed policies reduce the amount of “busy work” that needs to be completed at every board meeting, which helps to free up valuable time to focus on more strategic activities.
In order to ensure that the board is an effective as a partner in the oversight process, it is essential that it’s comprised of people who have a wide knowledge across all areas of the business. This includes sales, finance marketing, operations and finance. It is also beneficial to have some members who have experience in different areas other than healthcare. This will allow the board members to acquire new expertise and make the most appropriate decisions for the company.