6 Tips to Strengthen Your Board’s Effectiveness and Collective Competence

Doing Better Together: Six Tips to Strengthen Your Board’s Collective Effectiveness and Competence

Do you feel like your board could go further—but you don't think that the solution is simply holding more meetings? You’re not alone. The real key lies in learning how to do better together.

In this blog, I invite you to explore six practical ways to strengthen your board’s collective competence and effectiveness—along with two common pitfalls that often hold back even the most committed boards.

Because a board’s effectiveness isn’t measured by how much experience sits around the table, but by how people learn, act, and make decisions together.

1. Maintain a High Level of Governance Competence

Governance is something to learn—and to keep nurturing. Even the most experienced directors benefit from revisiting the principles of accountability, sound risk management, and strategic deliberation.

Tip: Offer regular governance training, or dedicate 10–15 minutes at the start of a meeting to revisit a key governance concept. These “learning moments” feed a culture of curiosity and shared rigor.

2. Maintain Strong Competence in the Organization’s Operating Sector

Understanding your organization’s sector, economic dynamics, and operational challenges is essential. A knowledgeable board can ask the right questions and better support management.

Tip: Organize field immersions—team visits, partner presentations, or discussions with frontline staff. These concrete experiences sharpen strategic judgment.

3. Deepen Understanding of Your Clients or Beneficiaries

A board that loses touch with its clients or beneficiaries also loses its strategic relevance. Decisions can quickly become abstract and disconnected from reality.

Tip: Invite clients or beneficiaries to share their perspectives. Review satisfaction surveys and analyze emerging trends. A board that listens better, decides better.

4. Hold Efficient, Strategy-Focused Meetings

Too often, boards spend 80% of their time listening to reports and only 20% discussing strategic issues. The result? Plenty of information—but little collective reflection.

Tip: Structure your agenda around three blocks: Information – Discussion – Decision.

Try to dedicate at least 50% of meeting time to strategic topics. If needed, appoint a timekeeper to help keep discussions focused.

5. Prepare for Every Meeting

Collective competence begins with individual preparation. Reading documents ahead of time, identifying unclear points, and preparing key questions is a simple gesture of respect toward the group.

Tip: Arrive ready to contribute—not just to listen. Cultivate active curiosity: seek to understand, not to judge.

6. Use Practical Evaluation Tools

Without evaluation, there’s no lasting improvement. An annual evaluation process for the board, directors, and officers is simple—but too often overlooked.

Tip: Implement an annual evaluation of board, director, officer, and committee performance. Use straightforward tools—self-assessment grids, anonymous feedback, or an external review every two to three years.

The result? A culture of continuous improvement where everyone feels part of the board’s collective progress.

Two Pitfalls to Avoid

Even with the best intentions, certain habits undermine a board’s collective competence and vitality.

Pitfall 1: Relying on Individual Experience Without Sustaining Collective Competence

Risk: Creating an illusion of collective competence, where each person acts from their own expertise without alignment. This leads to fragmented discussions, inconsistent decisions, and loss of cohesion.

Tip: Participate in ongoing governance training tailored to your board’s sector and maturity level. Integrate shared learning moments into meetings. Revisiting the fundamentals of governance together aligns perspectives and builds unity.

Impact: Strengthen cohesion and mutual trust. A board that learns together acts with clarity, speaks with one voice, and makes stronger, more strategic decisions.

Pitfall 2: Focusing Meetings on Information Rather Than Strategic Reflection

Risk: Reducing the board to a passive information-receiving body. When most of the meeting time is spent listening to reports, discussions lose energy and strategic creativity fades.

Tip: Limit one-way presentations. Encourage concise visual summaries and pre-read materials so meeting time can focus on reflection and decision-making.

Impact: Turn meetings into true spaces for shared intelligence, where mission and strategy take centre stage.

In Conclusion

Cultivating effectiveness also means cultivating trust. An effective board operates like a high-performing team: it prepares, communicates, and learns continuously.

So, if you want to spark meaningful change in your board, start with one action: pick a single tip or pitfall to work on. Watch how that small shift transforms your group dynamic.

Because it’s often in small adjustments that we see the biggest collective progress.