Rating: 
Summary: The ultimate resource
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: A Valuable Addition to Carver's Work on Governance
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Easy to Navigate This Rich Resource
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Easy to Navigate This Rich Resource
Review: 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.
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