Look around your management team meeting. Is everyone engaged in the conversation? Or are they looking at their phones as the meeting winds its way through a parade of topics or check-ins? We invest payroll and time in these meetings, so let’s make sure that we leverage that investment into a valuable and productive use of time. It’s good for the organization and for [...]
By Michael Healy 177 March-April 2015 In many co-ops, the manager and board of directors function effectively as a leadership team. Along with having systems and structures in place that support and encourage healthy personal and professional relationships, a key element in each of these high-functioning teams is a general manager (GM) who has accepted responsibility for strengthening the board-GM relationship. Through interviews [...]
Policy Governance is an operating system for boards of directors. As with operating systems for computers, the system itself is not the point of the board’s work; the system simply provides an underlying framework on which boards can build further agreements and activities. Policy Governance does not mandate specific decisions, but does highlight the kinds of decisions a board should make. These decisions include [...]
Ever had someone ask that simple question: What is the board's job anyway? and wondered where to start? The CDS Consulting Co-op model for cooperative governance, the Four Pillars of Cooperative Governance can help! We identify four pillars built on a foundation of Cooperative Identity that lead to the success of the cooperative. Each piece helps tell the story of the board's job. At the top is Success of [...]
Cooperative managers are charged with creating reports that demonstrate financial accountability to the board. Yet some managers struggle with having the right amount of information for their boards. When it comes to financial reporting what is the right amount? In the Columinate Library in the GM Report Support section, managers can find templates for financial conditions monitoring reports that gives boards the valuable information they [...]
We all spend a lot of time in meetings, but not all meetings are an effective use of our time. Here are nine simple steps to make your meetings more effective and worth the time. Meeting Purpose. Why is this a group meeting? If it’s a standing group meeting, such as a bi-weekly management team meeting, articulate the group’s purpose clearly to [...]
By Art Sherwood, Todd Wallace 175 November-December 2014 In 2013, the International Cooperative Alliance, in its “Blueprint for a Cooperative Decade,” identified the elevating of participation as a key component of its 2020 Vision for more and stronger cooperatives. The “Blueprint” states that, “Democratic member participation is the best-known feature of the co-operative way of doing business and a major part of what characterizes [...]
By Thane Joyal 175 November-December 2014 Within a consumer cooperative, the purpose of electing the board of directors from among the owners is to democratically control the co-op. All fiduciary responsibility for the cooperative rests with the board of directors. Consequently, everything that happens because of the cooperative happens because of the board of directors. How do we make our board elections meaningful in this [...]
