There are thousands of them, all trying to contribute to the betterment of something: public schools, universities, credit unions, banks, youth clubs, associations, civic clubs, charities, foundations, country clubs and music guilds. You name it; there is a board governing it - or trying to!
Despite the inherent worth of boards, for every one board that works well, there are scores of others that don't. Board members themselves far too frequently leave their positions on boards believing their valuable time has been wasted dealing not with substantive issues, but with administrative matters that should have been handled by staff. These frustrations are due to board members' having been thrust into a governing environment so inherently flawed that its failure was predictable.
For as long as there have been boards, we have seen these recurring, performance-limiting frustrations:
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Lack of clarity of overall purpose and focus: what is the organization expected to accomplish, for whom?
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Confusion of roles: is this task the board's responsibility, or is it staff's?
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Internal preoccupation, rather than external focus. Boards that feed off themselves - or off of their staff - accomplish little for their members/constituents/owners or their clients.
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Misguided perception of what is important: is the board's job to be the watchdog, or the vision-setter? Boards fail because their "governing system" - or lack of it - has predetermined failure built-in.
Why does The Aspen Group International, Inc. exist? To provide board members and executive staff the training, structure, facilitation and coaching to function as effective individuals and to form high performance leadership and governance teams - responsibly and accountably focused on achieving significant end results.
