The August 22, 2014 issue of APTA’s Passenger Transport includes a piece I wrote for the Commentary section, “Board Development by Design: A Board-Savvy CEO role.” Before getting into the process of developing a transportation board’s governing capacity in some detail, I asked the reader to “keep in mind a very important lesson I learned early in my career: A public transportation authority’s GM or CEO must be a leading participant – indeed, the prime mover – in fashioning a comprehensive plan for developing the board’s governing capacity.” I go on to explain why, pointing out that board members, typically being part-time, unpaid volunteers when they’re wearing their transportation board hats, “are highly unlikely to have either the time or the in-depth knowledge to spearhead systematic board development.”
Here’s a link to the article: http://newsmanager.commpartners.com/aptapt/issues/2014-08-22/17.html. You’ll find discussions of the key elements of board capacity building and of the retreat as a very effective board development tool. The power of well-designed and executed board-CEO-executive team retreats as a vehicle for strengthening the board’s governing role, structure and processes was brought home – once again – this past weekend, when I facilitated a daylong “High-Impact Governing Work Session” for the Birmingham-Jefferson County Transit Authority (BJCTA). Be on the lookout for a podcast that will appear within the next couple of weeks at www.boardsavvytransitceo.com, featuring the BJCTA Board Chair and CEO talking about why the work session was held and what it accomplished.
