Jane Garthson — Board Decision-Making in Small Organizations

“Board Decision-Making in Small Organizations”
Jane Garthson, Garthson Leadership Centre
October 30, 2013

Abstract: Boards of directors are charged with making the highest level of decisions for their organizations. Ideally, they will make high quality, well-informed decisions that will best enable their organization to achieve its purpose. So surely organizations would all have good practices to help their directors make great decisions, right? Sadly, many don’t.

Ever left a board meeting and, before you even got out of the building, stopped and wondered, “What have we done?” Some explicit considerations of how the board prepares for, and makes, decisions could help avoid such situations at your organizations. It’s the ethical thing do to if you care about the best possible outcomes, resource use, oversight and much more. Your choices won’t always make everyone happy, but there’s a far better chance your decisions will be seen as fair, wise and respected.

Jane’s session will focus on what could be done in advance of the board meeting and then what could happen at board meetings to support wise decisions at the top. Bring your perspectives as directors or senior staff of associations, charities, small businesses and community groups or advisors to such organizations.

*This event was co-sponsored by the Ethics Practitioners’ Association of Canada.