Governance as Leadership

Issue 122 - July 23, 2024

In This Issue:

• NEW BLOG: Form Follows Function: Does Yours?​
• Your Meetings Are Ineffective: Here's How to Plan a Better One
• The Hallway "hi" Has More Power Than Ever

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First, your function: what is your purpose? Where is it written? What does governance as leadership look like for your board? Second, then, your form. how does your structure support policy governance? How do you ensure impact? Here is where you start… Read on here.​

Your Meetings Are Ineffective: Here's How to Plan a Better One

Want a better decision? Plan a better meeting!

Here is a McKinsey Classic on the topic: A leader’s guide to planning effective meetings.

We’ve all suffered through unproductive meetings—ones with too many people, too little useful information, and, ultimately, too few decisions being made during or immediately after them. (You’ve likely already had one of those kinds of meetings today.)

And though it might seem tempting to simply hit “decline” the next time a meeting invite shows up in your inbox, you’d be better served by accepting the invitation—and attending a better-planned meeting. Here’s how to make that happen.

Start by clarifying the meeting’s goal. This may seem obvious, but it’s an important line that often gets blurred once a meeting begins.

Determine whether the goal of the call is to share information, discuss it, or make a decision.

Likewise, clarifying roles ahead of the start time will help attendees know what they should be doing during the meeting and boost the odds of achieving the meeting’s goal.

Decision making is paramount for any company, and productive meetings are where some of the best decisions happen.

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Who else is interested in Governance as Leadership? Share this newsletter with others!

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The Hallway "hi" Has More Power Than Ever

The hybrid work world requires leaders and managers to operate in more intentional ways when employees are in the office. It necessitates more ‘walk abouts’ and more random conversations.

And employees, in particular younger employees, should understand the pow

er of those in-person interactions with senior colleagues. This is called “the value of proximity”.​​

​Benjamin Friedrich, associate professor of strategy at the Kellogg School, explains it this way:

“For example, if a junior colleague needs advice on a difficult task, he may feel intimidated asking a senior colleague for help if they haven’t interacted much. However, if they’ve met informally—like seeing each other at lunch—it is much easier to start up a conversation about work. Multiplied over the course of weeks, months, and years, this fosters learning across the organization and can translate social capital into long-term career growth for the junior colleague.”

Whether you are the manager/leader or the more junior employee if both parties engage more often and ask questions the better it is. Tap into the power of that proximity!

Read Shepa’s blog post, Tap into the Power of Proximity, for some good ideas on how to do that. If you think someone would like this tip, why not forward it to them? It's a nice way to reconnect.

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All Names Have Been Collected from our draw at the 2024 ALA Conference for 1 free year of board training! The name will be revealed in next week's newsletter so please check your inbox next week!

Sincerely,

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