“I’m caught between a rock and a hard spot, and it doesn’t feel good – in fact, kind of dangerous.” This is how the superintendent opened our...
Month: November 2018
Board Chair Trudy Bartley and CEO Joanna Pinkerton on Breaking the Traditional CEO Mold at COTA
Traditionally, at the top of the list of qualifications public transit boards specify when recruiting candidates for the CEO position is in-depth...
Governing Isn’t a Piece of Cake
As our most of you know, Dave Stackrow and I are writing a book, “Becoming Your Board’s Chief Governing Partner: a Practical Guidebook for Transit...
Building a New Board-CEO Partnership at the American Association of Orthodontists
The most recent podcast in this blog’s ongoing series on building solid board-CEO partnerships features my interview with Board Chair Dr. Brent...
Southern Fairfield County (CT) Superintendents Explore the Governance Frontier at Their High-Impact Governing Work Session
The daylong “High-Impact Governing Work Session” hosted by the Southern Fairfield County Superintendents Association on October 26 opened with a...
Dueling Boards: a Cautionary True Story
The tension in the conference room was palpable, as the superintendent and her board president at one end of the table glared at the educational...
Taking Core Values Seriously at the Association Forum of Chicagoland
A couple of months ago I was sitting in on a meeting of the board planning committee and CEO of a large regional nonprofit corporation engaged in...
Not Much Glamour – But What Looks Like a Sow’s Ear is Really a Silk Purse
“That doesn’t really sound very CEO-like” That was the initial reaction of a transit GM in our coaching session last year when I suggested that he...
CEO Doug Allen Keeps a Close Eye on His Preeminent Stakeholders at VRE
Doug Allen, Chief Executive Officer of Virginia Railway Express, doesn’t need to hear this true cautionary tale, as you’ll see from the podcast he...
Caveat Emptor: an Axiom All Really Board-Savvy CEOs Take to Heart
To judge from participants’ questions during and after the workshop that I presented on September 25 at the American Public Transportation...