Customer Reviews

Getting Started With Policy Governance: Bringing Purpose, Integrity and Efficiency to Your Board's Work (J-B Carver Board Governance Series)

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Getting Started with Policy Governance is a great beginning resource for boards embarking on this process. The book provides clear instructions and information to get a board started in Policy Governance, and provides tools and examples to help pave the way. Any board or individual interested in policy governance, and how to get started, will find this book to be a goldmine.

What an excellent book! As a consultant, I have helped boards implement the Policy Governance model. Together with the two foundational books on Policy Governance (by Carver, and Carver & Carver), this is a book that I would want all organisations contemplating the adoption of Policy Governance to have in their library. The tools that Oliver provides at the end of each chapter are great. Overall, a top effort.

If you use this book as described, it works!

It is a good, relatively brief yet comprehensive mixture of the concepts, practices and tools contained in several books on Policy Governance®. It adds some new perspective and useful tools that they did not have. Whether your interest is in business boards, non-profits, or public boards and governing bodies, "Getting Started" applies.

If you are new to Policy Governance®, it provides some basic information quickly. If you are unsure about whether to adopt Policy Governance®, it provides useful assessments and tools for helping you determine what is right for you now. If you have committed to adopting it and want to get started, it gives you good guidance to begin.

Many of the tools are useful for those who have been using Policy Governance® awhile. Even if you don't think you want or need Policy Governance® in your board work, it is a good place to start, giving you the chance to improve your governing system as you understand more, rather than starting completely fresh (or worse, not starting to govern better at all).

Compared to other works on Policy Governance®, "Getting Started" has a great focus on the derivation of all that a board is and does: from those whom it represents. It has a helpful analogy about governing well being similar to riding a bike--mastering any skill requires practice. The book blends the principles and practices well and briefly.

Caroline gets me to think, especially with statements that I may disagree with. For example, I don't know if Policy Governance® is "a powerful tool through which we all, as global, national and local citizens, can fulfill our dreams." But it is good for me to think about how it might or might not do that. Late at night, it might even be good to hope that it were so.