Customer Reviews

John Carver on Board Leadership

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If you have read John Carver's books and watched his videotaped lectures, you have just begun to scratch the surface. In addition to "Boards That Make A Difference," "Reinventing Your Board," and "A New Vision of Board Leadership," Carver has produced an amazing array of short pieces designed for those who want to use Policy Governance. This book, "On Board Leadership," is a convenient compendium of these articles. It's well organized with a reliable index, an understandable table of contents and a list of "frequently asked questions" with references to the articles.

What this means is that my frequent trips to the file cabinet to riffle though my file of Carver's occasional writings are a thing of the past. From now on, I'll grab "On Board Leadership" and turn right to the article I need. If, for example, I am struggling with the concept of "cost," the index sends me to page 96 where I read that a board can only do so much. So the board must satisfy itself that by giving up end X in order to accomplish end Y, it is doing what its "owners" would want. The only tool I now lack is a "Carver Concordance."

Wide ranging discussions well organized. Just what every Policy Governance advocate can use. The book belongs in every association executive's library.

Gary Davis
Executive Director
Illinois Community College Trustees Association
401 E. Capitol Avenue, Suite 200
Springfield, IL 62701

John Carver On Board Leadership is a collection of articles that demonstrate the Policy Governance (R) model in board leadership, as written by its creator, John Carver, a man who has over twenty years of experience working with a variety of corporation boards. Addressing how to use the model of governance to improve communication and overall effectiveness, the role of committees, means for resolving disagreements, and much, much more, John Carver On Board Leadership is a solidly written, reader accessible, and effectively useful title recommended for anyone charged with the often difficult and complicated task of coordinating or leading a governing board.

With his breakthrough work on how boards may govern effectively, John Carver has invented a body of thought and a set of distinctions that simply did not exist before. While others have tinkered with the organizational problems facing nonprofit and public entities and come up with various tips and ideas, Mr. Carver has given us a complete, seamless model, called Policy Governance, that upends traditional notions of organizational behaviour. The very distinction of governance from management is one most nonprofits never make. The failure to do so opens a Pandora's box of problems and issues that continue to plague these organizations without the ability to understand or address their causes.

In his seminal works on Policy Governance, including Boards That Make a Difference and Reinventing Your Board, Mr. Carver has distilled the theory and methodology of his governance model. John Carver on Board Leadership brings us a wide range of his writings that delve more deeply into the many aspects and implications of his work. It is well organized by topic and cross indexed with FAQs that allow us to go from the problem to his solution rather than from theory to application.

Board and staff members alike, with a specific issue in mind, will be able to find useful articles that address just that issue while harking back to the theoretical foundation. On many occasions I have wished I had a way to sift through years of newsletters and periodicals to find a particluar writing on a particular issue I was grappling with. I now have that resource, and with it, the opportunity to observe Mr. Carver's thinking in greater detail, beyond the distillation of his theoretical works.

I highly recommend it.

This book is a gold-mine of practical information about the application of Policy Governance®. Boards will find a wealth of wisdom from former issues of Board Leadership, as well as a number of articles published in industry-specific journals that were not previously easy to find, now all in one convenient, easy-to-use package. Articles are short, easy-to-read, and of practical "hands-on" value. The FAQ section permits the reader to zoom in on particular areas of interest. As a consultant in Policy Governance® , I find the book to be a very user-friendly reference. For boards using the model, it is an invaluable resource. This is a book that can be read cover to cover, or can be "dipped into" to address specific issues facing a board at any given point in time. A must for your board's reference and on-going development.

While there are more and more books available on making boards effective, no other author seems to bring together anything more than miscellaneous ideas. John Carver, on the other hand, lays out a full system for board clarity and accountability.

I read his "Boards That Make a Difference", and was thrilled to see someone finally offer a way to make sense of boards. As a consultant, I've become an avid advocate of his Policy Governance model, which when used, virtually assures elevated governance.

With this new book, Carver continues to impress. Rather than a conceptual text, this collection of over 100 articles addresses nearly every conceivable structural issue boards face, as well as the myths surrounding Policy Governance.

To have all of this relevant information in one place is an incredible gift, another great addition to Carver's contributions to the nonprofit world, and any others interested in making boardroom activity meaningful and productive.

This latest book by John Carver is the most complete compendium of Dr. Carver's theory on Policy Governance. The book is a "must have" resource for Boards practicing Policy Governance.

The book is a practical guide to the application and implementation of the principles of Policy Governance.

One of the features I particularly like is the way chapters are organized to help find answers to questions.

I am recommending it to all my clients.

I found this book to be full of wonderful surprises. Most of the material was completely new to me - fresh ideas, fresh angles. There is an amazing amount of thought-provoking stuff here for anyone involved with governance and I love the clear uncluttered layout design for taking me quickly to the bits that interest me most.

WOW! This compendium of more than 100 of John Carver's articles would be useful enough if it only collected these important articles on Policy Governance into one volume. This publication goes several steps further - by starting with a Frequently Asked Questions Guide, the reader is directed to his or her most urgent concerns. These FAQs appear throughout the book along with pull-out quotes that focus the reader's attention on key issues in the section. Both these features make the book easy to navigate and consequently, a richer resource.

It's great to have these articles combined into one resource since many have been previously published in hard to access journals. This will be a great resource for those new to Policy Governance as well as to experienced practitioners.