According to Amy Wishnick as she wrote in a recent Charity Channel thought piece on nonprofit boards, HALT (hungry, angry, lonely, tired) is a stress management technique used to introduce incoming college students for self-awareness and understanding purposes (likely not approved by Betsy DeVoss but who knows) that can be re-framed for nonprofit governance purposes.
In a very simplified overview, Ms. WIshnick offers HALT as follows:
Hunger - "nourishing your board, literally and figuratively, as promoting effective leadership and includes actually providing food while strengthening the relational aspect of members.
Angry - directly manage and/or don't retain hostile or negative board members
Lonely - create activities that help unify members - one simple step is to bring-on a class of members at the same time and build relationships at least with that group reducing isolation
Tired - term limits matter to reduce weary members. Also, board meeting agendas should be structured to ensure higher engagement.
I generally think this this HALT paradigm as kind of hokey BUT I I very much agree with one central and underlying unspecified theme: there are two constant dynamics in a board's life: relational and transactional. The relational dynamic always affects the transactional dynamic - positive and stronger relationships produce positive outcomes.