A key asset of great nonprofits is of course the board itself but maximizing all of the value possible within those great minds takes ongoing effort.  Balancing board, committee and individual contributions is essential but sometimes we overlook the core strengths of each member that lie untapped.  Maybe once a year, we go over board member backgrounds to insure we identify potential interests to avoid or mitigate conflicts.  And maybe, when a new member joins we ask him or her to “tell us a little about yourself.”

Perhaps it is even more vital to continue to refresh our understanding of what each member brings to the board table.  We forget that while a person’s history may not change dramatically from year to year, their own understanding of what is important or what they choose to care about or emphasize in their dealings can dramatically change.  Even spouses or the best of friends continually learn new things about each other. 

How to go about this refreshing of information about each other?  Jan Masaoka of Blue Avocado offers the 7 x 7 approach.  Basically, the idea is to take 15 minutes of a standard board meeting and devote half of that time to a self-report by a board member and the other half to clarifying and exploratory questions from the other members.  In addition to new raw information, this is a great way to help all board members to think creatively about synergies and connections for the organization based upon even a few new chunks of information.  Imagine what can come from new knowledge and creative thinking gained in just a few minutes at every meeting!

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3.22 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."