Quality information leads to quality conversations - board reports what do we need to know?
At a recent NGA Conference a presentation by Caroline Copeman, Senior Visiting Fellow at Cass Centre for Charity Effectiveness, set me thinking about the topic for this my latest blog post. One of Caroline's opening slides stated - ' Quality of conversation at board, and the ability to think well, needs quality information and thoughtful question prompts'. Now I have been involved in a number of board meetings recently at different schools that required some really im portant decisions to be made in the interests of our children. Reflecting on this, I could see how the quality of the discussion, and ultimately the quality of the decision, was indeed directly linked to the quality of the information provided for those meetings. So, if quality information is key to board effectiveness, why is it that boards spend so little time discussing, evaluating and agreeing what information best enables them to do their job well? Or am I wrong about this? - Have you discussed