The CEO of the American Association of Diabetes Educators, Lana Vukovljak, played a key role in the board development initiative that is described in my article in the April issue of Forum, "Taking a Good Board to the Next Level." But Lana was much more than just an active participant in the process, along with a number of AADE Board leaders serving on the Governance Task Force that came up with the board improvement recommendations and oversaw their implementation. She was what I call the "Chief Board Developer" - a role that the CEOs of associations that bring off highly successful board development efforts always play, in my experience.
As Chief Board Developer at AADE, Lana:
- Made the effort to become a true expert in the rapidly changing field of association governance well before the AADE board development task force got underway. She had a clear vision of what a really high-functioning, high-impact board should look like.
- Took the initiative in contacting me about serving as consultant to the effort, and really grilled me about my philosophy of governance, my methodology, and my experience before deciding that I was the right consultant to work with the task force.
- She played an active, hands-on quality control role, meticulously reviewing and, as necessary, revising materials prepared for task force meetings.
- And she played the same active, hands-on role in implementing the task force board improvement recommendations as she did in fashioning the recommendations. For one thing, she spent hours with her senior managers, developing and executing a staff-support strategy to ensure the new board committees got off to a good start.
The AADE experience confirms what I've learned in hundreds of other board development projects over the past two decades: success depends on the CEO truly being the Chief Board Developer. For a CEO to merely function as a member of the board development team, or worse, to take a hands-off approach, would seriously jeopardize success.
Doug Eadie
The AADE experience confirms what I've learned in hundreds of other board development projects over the past two decades: success depends on the CEO truly being the Chief Board Developer. For a CEO to merely function as a member of the board development team, or worse, to take a hands-off approach, would seriously jeopardize success.
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