Recent Breakthrough in Development: Systems Thinking One of the recent breakthroughs in organizational and management development is the ability to understand organizations and each of the various functions in them as a system. Each of the functions, such as Boards, planning, leadership, management, marketing, sales and finances is a system. Each of these functions is …
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Business Laws & Ethics
Will beneficial ownership registers spread around the World?
Governments have become more and more focused on the risks posed by opaque and confidential corporate structures. In particular the ability of a certain type of person to use such structures to hide the true ownership and origin of funds, thereby facilitating tax evasion and money laundering. Most bodies set up to tackle these issues …
When Boards have recurring problems, such as poor attendance, low participation, high turnover of members or increasing conflicts, here’s a quick process that I’ve used successfully to “jump start” recovery. Sure, the steps aren’t all of those needed for complete Board development — those steps would produce a blog post about 25 pages long. But …
The Corporate Secretaries International Association recently released a report, “Twenty Practical Steps to Better Corporate Governance.” It struck me that almost all of the steps applied to nonprofit Boards as well. (The Report refers to “corporate” governance, the phrase commonly used for for-profit Boards, which is a misnomer I believe because Boards are required for …
For nearly 30 years the heroic story of Johnson & Johnson quick action to remove Tylenol from the shelves after a deadly tampering incident has been folklore in business circles. So what do we make of the news today that The Food and Drug Administration is considering “additional enforcement actions” that might include criminal penalties …
Over the years, I’ve noticed four common types of “broken” Boards. One of the ways you can recognize them is by the comments that members make. Here’s the types of Boards and what you might hear members saying. 1. Detached Board “Why are you calling me to come to a meeting? What Board are you …
The challenges facing Paul Levy, the embattled CEO of Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, highlight the issues faced by many leaders: once in hot water, how to start on the road to recovery. The problem is that many leaders don’t appreciate the nature of the ethics risks they face and what is in fact …
Why a Policy for Making Decisions? How often have you heard Board members assert that they’d made a decision, when they really hadn’t — all they had done was talk about a topic for a long while? Or, how often have some Board members or the Executive Director asserted that a decision had been made, …
