Good Governance Starts with Structure. Great Governance Doesn't End There.

Most sport boards have done the hard work of building a foundation.

Bylaws. Some policies. Perhaps some job descriptions. Maybe a board manual that took two years to finish. These things are the structural backbone that makes everything else possible. (If you want a primer on what that structural foundation looks like in practice, Steer, Don't Row: Governance vs. Operations is a good place to start.)

And yet, some boards with all of those things in place still find their meetings running long, their directors uncertain about their roles, or they’re revisiting decisions. These are whispers that structure, on its own, only goes so far.

The organizations that govern most effectively aren't necessarily the ones with the most comprehensive documentation. They're the ones that have built consistent practices and habits around using it.

It’s these practices that take governance to the next level.

A story about reports — and what they actually taught us

A few years ago, I sat on the board of a nonprofit recreation organization. Like a lot of volunteer boards, we were struggling with our meetings — specifically, how long they ran and how much time we spent sitting through verbal updates from committee chairs and staff.

The obvious fix seemed to be a reporting template. So we built one. And it helped — a little. Reports started coming in more consistently. Meetings got slightly more organized.

But we still weren't getting what we needed. Information was thin. Updates were vague. We'd get to the discussion portion of the agenda and realize we were missing context to make a good decision. We’d made progress, but not the progress we were looking for. So we looked at it again.

What we realized was that the template existed, but we hadn't given people enough guidance on what to actually include, or explained why it mattered. Directors and committee chairs were filling in the form, but without understanding what the board needed from them, they were guessing.

Once we addressed that — once we added guidance to the template and took the time to walk people through what useful reporting actually looked like — something shifted. Missing reports dropped to nearly zero. The information we received became genuinely useful. And our meetings got shorter, because we stopped re-covering ground verbally that had already been captured in writing. We could get straight to the issues that actually needed discussion.

The template was the structure. Everything else was the practice.

What this looks like in high-performing boards

That experience points to two things I consistently see in sport organizations that govern well.

They stay honest with themselves about whether their efforts are working. We could have declared victory when we created the template. We did feel an improvement. But it fell short of what we wanted, and we were willing to look at that. High-performing boards build in regular moments of reflection. Not to find fault, but to stay calibrated. They ask: is this actually producing what we need? If not, what do we need to change?

They treat their volunteers as the asset they are. The missing piece in our reporting situation wasn't bad intentions, it was inadequate guidance. Once we respected people enough to thoroughly train them and explain the why, they delivered. Organizations that govern well invest in their volunteers: they onboard directors properly, they make expectations clear, and they give people the tools and context to do their roles well. The investment takes the governance in our organizations to the next level.

Neither of these practices requires a governance overhaul. They require intention, and a willingness to look at what's working and what isn't, and investment into trialing tweaks.

Where the growth is

Most sport organizations have some governance frameworks. They have the policies. They have the people. What they're often missing is the layer between structure and results: the habits, processes, and practices that make their organization to one that’s high-performing.

That's exactly what we're exploring on May 11.

In From Good to Great: What High-Performing Sport Boards Do Differently, we'll look at four practices that separate boards that function from boards that lead — including the two above, and two more. It's a free, 60-minute virtual session for board members, board chairs, executive directors, and sport staff.

If you’d like to see how you can take your board to the next level, this is for you.

Register here