A Direct Line Blog

By Donya Parrish, MCU VP Risk Management

The Filene Research Center for Leadership, Strategy & Governance just released a report that proves to be timely and valuable. Credit Union Governance Landscape is not just pages and pages of words for you to read and decipher in your spare time. Instead, author Amy Hillman, a professor at Arizona State University, provides the report in the format of four infographics that each cover a relevant topic for credit union boards of directors.

Here is a sneak peek of each of them:

1. Shaping Your Board to Be a Strategic Asset: The intro notes, “Boards of directors can fulfill more than just a fiduciary requirement. Boards can be an asset helping the credit union advance its strategy and achieve its mission.” It includes how to look at your current board composition, what it means to make space for new perspective board members, and what the process to recreate a new director might include.
2. Making Your Boards More Effective: “Having the right people in the chairs around the boardroom is critical to a board as a strategic asset, but how you leverage them is equally important.” This section covers onboarding new directors and the ongoing education of the board members, as well as why it matters.
3. The CEO and the Board: “A strong, trust-based relationship between the CEO and the board is critical to ensure productive delegation and delineation of responsibilities. Just as credit union leaders assess and plan for the future of the board, boards must do the same for CEOs and credit union leadership.” Here the infographic discusses the role of the board, CEO accountability, and succession planning — all important issues for any size credit union.
4. Optimizing Board Meetings: “Meeting overload, especially with the required disclosures for credit union boards, is a concern. However, done well, credit union boards can be managed for effectiveness and efficiency.” The final infographic helps boards have the best meeting possible by laying out how to set expectations, determine meeting frequency, and maximize the board’s time. I’m not sure any of us can argue with the importance of productive use of meeting time!

We encourage you to consider membership in Filene to support their valuable work and to get access to the infographics. They are not only a fantastic visual resource to refer to easily and often; they also work well for those of us with a short attention span.

And, if you enjoyed the report above, you can also hear from thirteen CEOs about their own Lessons on Governance in working with their boards.