High Performance Boards, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 7The Fourth Pillar: Group Dynamics and Board Culture

The quality of board members’ interactions is crucial to board success. The ideal board culture will encourage strong debates (the dialectic process) while fostering alignment (finding the path to purpose) based on solid shared values. Traditionally, analyses of board dynamics focused on the individual director as a key building block, examining his or her demographic attributes, personality type, and emotional and cultural intelligence. But although these are of course important, a board is primarily a high-performance work group and a social institution. We therefore need to know more about the board's collective processes and behaviours in order to understand and predict the quality of governance, and the resulting impact on the organisation's performance.

People create meaning through interactions with each other. The effectiveness of their decisions depends on their ability to productively exchange views and challenge one another. As such, healthy board dynamics are an essential foundation for good governance. These include: the ways in which the board handles differences; generates trust; creates the right context for discussions and decision-making; manages conflict; and sets up leadership roles. In addition, directors’ participation and contributions during board meetings are key factors in board effectiveness.

Boards need to present a unified front to the outside world in accordance with the ‘one-voice principle’. ...