Developing Your Board’s Governing Capacity Isn’t a Piece of Cake
The last two articles posted at this blog have taken a look at the transit CEO’s “Chief Board Developer” role, which Dave Stackrow, APTA Vice Chair, and I will be examining in detail in the book we are co-authoring, Becoming Your Board’s Chief Governing Partner: a Practical Guidebook for Transit CEOs and CEO-Aspirants. Dave and I are keenly aware that there are some formidable – but by no means insurmountable – barriers you’re likely to encounter in helping your board build its governing capacity. We’ll be paying special attention to three of the more important roadblocks in our book, … Read the rest
The CEO as Chief Board Developer: Part 2
The August 6 post at this blog makes the case for transit chief executives to play what I call the “Chief Board Developer” role, building the board’s capacity to do the really high-impact governing that turns board members into satisfied owners of their governing work. As I observe in that post, your long-term success as CEO heavily depends on strong leadership from board members who own their governing role. Two of the most powerful approaches for building your board’s governing capacity while also generating the kind of board ownership that fuels commitment to implementing the capacity building recommendations, are the … Read the rest
The CEO as Chief Board Developer: Part 1
Since strong, creative board leadership is one of the preeminent keys to your transit authority’s long-term success in this changing, challenging world, board capacity building must be one of your top three CEO leadership priorities. Any CEO (and I hear this every now and then) who sits back bemoaning the board’s lackluster leadership without taking affirmative action to help the board become a higher-impact governing body is guilty of dereliction of duty – and of being less than a full-fledged CEO.
In my experience, as your authority’s CEO, you must be not just an active participant in – but also … Read the rest
Beware of the Passive-Reactive Board
Over the years, a basically passive-reactive approach to governing – a model of sorts – has been passed down and has predominated – and probably still predominates – in both the for-profit and public/nonprofit sectors. This approach – or model – sees the governing board as basically a responsive body, rather than as a generator or initiator of actions or products. You can picture the passive-reactive board sitting at the pinnacle of the organization, waiting for staff-initiated things – policy recommendations, documents such as plans and budgets that call for adoption, briefings that require no action, etc. – to arrive, … Read the rest
VIA’s Jeff Arndt: Connecter-in-Chief Extraordinaire
There’s wide agreement in the for-profit sector that CEOs should be actively engaged in the external arena – building their enterprises’ image and maintaining relationships with key stakeholders. In fact, many for-profit CEOs have testified that they routinely spend more than 50 percent of their time dealing with external matters, which is one of the most important reasons why the CEO-COO (chief operating officer) structure is so widely employed. If you’re committed to being your organization’s Ms. Outside, then it makes good sense to put a Mr. Inside in place to ensure that the shop runs smoothly in your absence.… Read the rest
Turning Your Board Into a Cohesive Governing Team: Part 2
As I noted in last week’s post at this blog, turning transit boards into really cohesive governing teams is no piece of cake, primarily because the great majority of transit board members are appointed by elected officials. In practice this means that many if not most transit board members feel as – if not more – accountable to their appointing authorities than to their board colleagues. Now matter how stiff the challenge, however, board-savvy transit CEOs know that they’ve got no choice but to help their boards become more effective governing teams for two main reasons. First, teamwork is one … Read the rest
Turning Your Board Into a Cohesive Governing Team: Part 1
Teamwork in the abstract is neither here nor there for public transit boards. The only serious reason for developing your board’s teamwork is to help it function as a more effective governing body that gets its governing work done more effectively and efficiently. The acid test of an effective team is its productivity in accomplishing its assigned tasks. Productive teams are also generally characterized by a high level of cooperation and coordination in getting their work done, harmonious relations among team members, the absence of debilitating conflicts, and the capacity to withstand considerable stress and strain without falling apart. You … Read the rest
Get Your Board-CEO Retreat Right
Retreats have become a popular vehicle for involving transit board members, their CEOs, and executives in accomplishing high-impact governing work that could not be accomplished – at least not as well – in regular board business meetings. Updating a vision statement and identifying and discussing strategic and operational issues certainly fall in this category. The return on your authority’s investment of time, energy, and money in a retreat can be quite powerful, in terms not only of substantive outcomes such as an updated vision statement, but also process spin-offs such as esprit de corps, satisfaction, ownership of – and commitment … Read the rest
CEO Dave Genova on Getting Stakeholder Engagement Right at RTD-Denver
You’ll recall that in earlier posts at this blog we’ve defined “stakeholders” as individuals, groups, and organizations it makes sense to build and maintain relationships with because something important is at stake. For example, the office of the mayor and board of county commissioners in your region are always primo stakeholders whose political – and often financial – support are tremendously important to your authority. Over my 30 years of work with public transit CEOs and their boards I’ve come across more than one case of poorly planned and managed stakeholder engagement. This is really unfortunate since the support of … Read the rest
Cementing the Partnership With Your Board
This post has been adapted from an article that originally appeared in the Spring 2018 edition of the Association Forum’s “CEOnly Newsletter.” It is reprinted here with the Forum’s permission.
Satisfied Owners Make Better Partners
Thirty years of working with public and nonprofit boards of all shapes and sizes and their chief executives have taught me that your long-term success and professional longevity as CEO of your transit authority have more to do with maintaining a healthy partnership with your board than any other factor. I’ve also learned that even if your transit authority is thriving in terms of operational … Read the rest
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