In the Summer 2010 Conference Board Review there's some good fodder about governing boards. The Conference Board focuses principally on for-profit corporate boards but the content presented in this series of mini-articles is worth a discussion among nonprofit folks.
One learning: composition matters as does holding members accountable.
The problem begins with the composition of the board. Typically, boards have been unwilling to confront or ease out under performing directors; instead, they rely on retirement ages and term limits to cull the herd, taking out both stars and dos. Many boards routinely reject efforts to increase board size, which delays the recruitment of new directors until a retirement looms. This means that CEOs and shareholders must often wait years before bringing about directors with backgrounds and experience the company needs for meaningful boardroom dialog at its stage of growth.
Another: it's not clear what "best practice" really looks like.
One company's board separated the roles of chairman and CEO on the basis that this was a governance best practice, only to install a non-executive chair incapable of running an effective meeting. Another board created a risk committee but is now mired in confusion over what this committee does vis-a-vis the audit and finance committees... In both cases, the functioning of these boards and the value they could contribute would have been affected far more positively by changes in the way the board engaged in strategy, provided pre-reading materials to its members, and structured its meetings.
There's a bunch more wisdom or at least matters to consider. Please link on over and check out the article. Oh, I do have to acknowledge that the piece from Nancy Lublin's Zilch on using the board's wisdom is also included. Note, I agree that board members should certainly be a source of wisdom on any number of matters but as volunteers and certainly not as a primary resource to anyone but the Exec, or at least, only with the accompaniment of the Exec.