Webinar: Why Most Boards Get Induction Wrong — And What High-Performing Boards Do Instead

Many new Directors meet formal requirements yet struggle in their first year, often lacking confidence, practical boardroom fluency, and judgement.

This webinar addresses the critical onboarding gap that leads to silence, overreach, and uneven contribution, helping Boards unlock capability, reduce friction, and improve early Director effectiveness from day one.

Developed from many thousands of interviews with chairs, directors and CEOs, these techniques support directors across their first 12 months on a board. It will provide insight into how boards actually operate, how decisions are shaped, and how directors can add real strategic value without overstepping into management.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

So, hi everybody. Welcome to our webinar today titled Why Most Boards Get Induction Wrong and What High Performing Boards Do Instead. On our panel today is Stephen Bowman, Catherine Rouge, and Linda Carroll. Welcome to you, team. My name is Sean McDonald, and I shall be your moderator in the background for the next 40 odd minutes. So, firstly, thank you for attending today. I always, or we always appreciate the effort you make to be here for our live events. During the session, if you have any questions, please try and use the QA button on your toolbar as against chat. It just enables us to keep a track of the questions as they're coming through. We'll be answering as many of these questions as we have time for. And finally, if you stay through till the end, which of course we hope you will do, we've got a really short one-minute survey that we would like you to consider. Your feedback really helps us bring relevant content to you week after week and enables us to position our great team of expert presenters for you. So please take a minute to complete the survey as you exit the webinar today. Now, for those not too familiar with BoardPro, we are a board software provider, sometimes called Board Portal, and we serve just over 35,000 users around the world, and we're represented in about 34 different countries these days. And we enable organizations to prepare for and run their board meetings more efficiently and effectively with less time and deliver more impact and value for the organization. And as much as we are a board software provider, part of our wider mission here at BoardPro is to make the fundamentals of governance free and easy to implement for all organizations, especially those organizations with resource constraints. And one of the many ways we do this is by providing free access to hundreds of governance templates, guides, and resources, which you will find, funnily enough, in the resources section of our website. And these webinars that we host each week are a great way of accessing key governance knowledge without the time, commitment, and costs associated with uh in-person events. So I'm going to hand over to our team now to introduce themselves, starting with you first, Stephen.

SPEAKER_03 2:28

Hi everyone, Steve Bowman from Conscious Governance. I've been working with boards and senior executive teams when I'm not on a board, or and I've been the CEO of many organizations over my career. Um, primarily working in the area of uh governance reviews, board and uh capability reviews, strategic planning, and lots of in-house board conversations. So partially what we're talking about today has been gleaned from nearly 40 years worth of those conversations and insights from directors and chairs. Over to you, Catherine.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Thanks, Steve. Kiara Tenakoto Katoa, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where you're joining from. I'm based in the city of Ottotahi Christchurch in uh Tewaipoinomu, the South Island of Altiaroa, New Zealand. I work independently as a leadership coach and consultant. I've got a background in aviation and strategic comms and a special interest in team dynamics in any context, and I love helping people design uh and design experiences that help people to integrate and contribute well to whatever team they're on for however long they're together. And I've been involved in governance uh since the late 1900s.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Linda. Thank you, Catherine, Kiola. My name's Linda Carroll. I'm the CEO of Align Group. We've been around for 30 years, assisting organizations to align strategy, governance, culture, and business performance. Um I'm a chartered fellow of the IOD and an accredited foresight practitioner through the Institute for the Future in Sao Paulo, California. Um most of my work is around governance development, undertaking governance framework reviews, and sitting on boards. So I'm currently on five boards, chair of two and deputy chair of one. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Thanks, team. Rodto, Stephen, back to you, sir.

SPEAKER_03 4:26

Thank you. So we're talking about induction programs, or as I learnt recently, in Canada and the USA, they're known as onboarding programs, and in other parts of the world, orientation programs. So we're talking, it's all the same thing, but what we'll be doing is calling it an induction program for this particular audience. So every organization typically who has a board will have a board induction or orientation process that they go through. Most of them do it really, really badly. How do I know that? Because I've had thousands of directors tell me that as we go through and have our the, you know, the reviews and the conversations we have. And I've just put in here some typical comments that we feel. You know, many directors feel overwhelmed or underprepared despite giving traditional induction packs. And this quote, I had a couple of hours on a video conference, which was helpful, but I was still totally unprepared for directors' responsibilities. And then others have felt disengaged or intimidated. Um, the induction was woeful, a couple of meetings and a watt of paper, not useful at all. And then my personal favorite, which I get a lot, which is uh what induction? So these are the sorts of things that often you will find. And if you reflect, um if you've been through an induction yourself, was it a great induction? Did it help you get your feet under the table? Did it help you understand the nuances around the board? Did you feel both supported, but also you were able to add value to that board almost from day one? That was a good induction versus, well, I've still got the water paper, I'll get to it eventually. So, what we want to do is to reframe our conversation around what these induction or orientation programs might look like. Sean, next one. So let's have a look at typically what goes into an induction program. Now, these are the typical ones. You don't have to read through this, you'll get the slides later on. But there's a whole lot of documents. These are all documents that you get. So you get a wad of documents. And if you're lucky, they've been digitized. If you're not, then you get them in one big folder. And what happens in there is that you get a chance to go through those. And again, if you're lucky, you'll get to have a meeting with the chair and a meeting with the CEO. And if you're really lucky, you might get some uh one-hour meetings with the heads of the various departments. And if you're really, really, really lucky, you might get some visits to some of the sites so that you get to have a feeling of how things are. But that's all usually in the first month. And so that's why a lot of directors say, I have I was overwhelmed. There was so much material to get through. And quite honestly, there was no one there really to help me go through that material. I had to go through it by myself. So that's the traditional induction. And what we want to do is to raise the bar on this so that we can actually help our directors get to the stage where they are very quickly in the process feeling part of the board team that they are adding value because they're sitting around that table because they were deemed to be able to add value. They're adding value, but they're also helping uplift the rest of the board as well. Catherine, your thoughts on what you've seen with induction programs.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Um, well, first of all, nothing like what I know you're about to present to us as the gold standard. Um, certainly, yeah, I'm I've been a recipient of huge um wads of paper, um, digital files, just massive amounts of reading. Um, something that has actually has categorized my inductions, which has been I've always found a bit peculiar, is uh more time with the CEO than the board chair. So board chairs that often will kind of outsource induction to the the person running the operation, which I've always I've found peculiar because the board chair is they're the team leader. And if I'm joining the team, I want the team, I want some time with the team leader to understand how the team works. So um, yeah, that's that's I think often it it does tend to get dumped on the operation rather than being owned at at the board level.

SPEAKER_03 8:43

Yeah. Linda, you've got lots of experience in the U.S.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

Well, I just um I one of the things I wanted to share was the fact that, you know, I've trained hundreds of directors over the years, and I have to say that I would maybe 80% of them haven't had an induction. And um, so the fact that you're even presenting this list of documents is um a bonus for a lot of people. They go onto the board and they're not told much at all. Um, my experience is either nothing or like Catherine, spending time with the chief executive and senior managers and um asking the chair for a cup of coffee, please. So yeah, I think that there's this is you've hit the nail on the head. This is an area where we can all learn a lot.

SPEAKER_03 9:32

And the the imperative behind this is not because it's a nice to-do or it's best practice. It's that's all rubbish. The reason you want to have a good induction is you want to get access to the wisdom, the insights, and the absolute skills that that new director or trustee is bringing onto your board. Because if you don't, you're going to spend years dealing with bad behavior, really inane questions, um, misunderstanding of the fundamental nature of the board and the and the organization. And I've I've got one client at the moment where they've had new two new directors come on, and probably 30% of the time of the of the staff's preparation for those meetings is trying to deal with uneducated questions from those new directors who feel as if they know everything. So this is what uh the downside of not doing a really good induction might be. Okay, Sean, next one. So this is based on thousands and thousands of interviews I've done over four and a half decades. Um it's not just me plucking this out of there. This is what directors that have told me and chairs that have told me that a really, really, really, really good induction consisted of these four things. The first, it's mandatory. And this is Linda was saying before, there's been many instances where some directors have not had an induction, a, because it didn't exist, and B, if it did exist, then they were just too busy. I'm too busy to do that. All right. So it's got to be mandatory. It's got to be part of what you sign on for as a director. Um, it's got to be formally monitored. You can't just let someone go off and do this themselves. It should be monitored by potentially the governance committee or whatever the equivalent of that is. You probably don't want it monitored just by the chair. At the very least, your company secretary or the equivalent, governance lead, whatever it might be, should be focused on making sure that this induction is both followed but also checking in with them to make sure that they're getting what they need as a new director as part of their journey onto this board. The big one is this next one. The really good induction programs, the directors have said the reason it was fantastic is that they had mentors. Those mentors were mandatory and they were formally monitored. And they had two mentors, one in the first six months of their time on the board, and a different mentor for the second six months in that first 12 months of their board. And those mentors knew what they were doing because they were supported, and the mentees or the new directors knew how to get the most from those mentors. So they were set up as a learning environment rather than, oh, if you get a chance, come and have a cup of coffee and tell me what you're not happy with. All right, that's not mentoring. So we'll talk a little bit more about more mentoring, and I want to talk to Catherine and Linda about that too, because they've got very, very cool perspectives on this. And then the last one is the induction programs that worked really well were for 12 months, not here's your bottom of papers, see you at your first board meeting. So it can be graduated over 12 months. And the key thing behind this is it should not generate any more work for the staff or the board. It's something that needs to be planned out in advance and then supported. And once you've got the materials in place for it, it just kicks along. Catherine?

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Well, I've got a question for you actually on this um wonderful design. Um, what advice or recommendations would you have for uh community, people involved in community governance where there's a shorter board term? Some people, I know in a lot of situations, are only on a board. You might be your turnover might be every 12 months. You're you're reintegrating people. Um so what's your first thing I'd look at is that 12 months.

SPEAKER_03 13:45

Yeah, so recommendation number one, look at that 12-month term. Look at you know, is extending it out to to two years, all right. I've the only time I've seen uh uh uh actually I haven't seen one-year terms work at all. I've seen that they have to because that's how it's been uh dedicated, but in essence, you've got people coming in who try and leave their own imprint on that organization because that's a they they think that's what's expected from them. Um rather than as a new director coming on, I'm there to make sure we're making the choices that create the future for the community. So by that notion I have to long term. So first one is have a look at that 12-month term. Now, if it's legislated, good luck. All right. But if it's not legislated, you can actually have a different conversation around that. The second thing is that when I say 12 months and you've only got a 12-month uh and a 12-month term, then make do the key things out of this in three months, but don't do it with a wad of papers and nothing. So, yeah, fit for purpose.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

I do think it's a it's a solid um oh sorry, Linda. Um I was gonna say, you I I think in any team, I I'm a fan of seasons, and I think you need to see an organization, a team through four seasons to get a handle on uh yeah, how how they operate and the challenges because you might um yeah, but different tensions come with different seasons in the life of any team and organization. So I I think anything that spans 12 months is is a great uh model. Sorry, Linda.

unknown 15:14

Linda.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

No, look, I um I was just looking and seeing that we've got another question which is a really interesting one, and I'm going to flick it to you, Stephen. Um, so it's saying that for the boards that buy in professional advice, for example, appointing an external representative, and I'm thinking that it's like an advisory board person onto the board of a of a committee like Finance People Risk. How should we best approach induction for them? So I think that it is when you've got an external advisor coming onto one of your committees because of their specialist knowledge.

SPEAKER_03 15:52

Well, the induction of someone coming onto a board committee as such should be about a similar sort of process, but focused on that particular committee. So if it's finance, audit and risk, then you don't just give them the last finance, audit, and risk papers. You actually have a chat with them. You have a mentor, you you provide them with a mentor. Not because the person coming on might have more skills than anyone else, but someone who's already on the existing uh existing committee has more skills about how this board has worked, how this committee has worked in the past. What are some of the tension points that we need to know? Yeah. So so you you take the elements from this and make it fit for purpose. So you don't have to put them through the whole 12-month induction process.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

But you do need to provide enough information, don't you, Stephen, that they understand the operating model of the business, they understand how it actually operates, where it gets its revenue from, everything that a board member needs, um, but perhaps um a little bit more um focused on the committee that they're joining. But they're not going to be able to provide expert advice if they don't actually have that knowledge. So it's almost like thinking of them as a consultant to the committee. And it is with any consultancy, you always want them to understand your business.

SPEAKER_03 17:04

Yeah, and and and as you would for any director. And so, therefore, if you've set your induction program up with various modules in it, one of those modules will be finance, budgeting, risk management. That independent committee member should be able to access that and also have conversations with the people most involved before their first committee meeting. So great question. Thank you for that. Okay, so keep those things in mind. It should be mandatory, formally monitored. If it's not monitored, then you get and then the mandatory thing becomes less relevant. Um, mentors and and the number of times I've heard people say, Oh, we tried mentoring, it didn't work. And then I said, Well, why didn't it work? Oh, because it wasn't mandatory. Okay. And then for at least 12 months. Okay, sure, next one.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

While we're switching slides, Steve, um, on the monitoring, who should own that within the board? Does it start to do it?

SPEAKER_03 18:05

Typically, it'd be the governance committee. I wouldn't look, the chair's got so much on their plate already. So if you have a governance committee or a people, uh uh people, culture and nominations committee or a nominations, whatever you whatever that you might call, where it looks after the uh recruitment, the induction, the performance management, the succession planning for the board and also the CEO, whoever looks after that should be the logical place where this lives. Um, but I wouldn't be putting everything on to the the the poor chair because they've got a lot to do anyway. If you don't have such a committee, then create one. It maybe only needs to meet two or three times a year, but it is looking after the two key assets of the organization. That's what this committee would look after. And those two key assets are the board itself and whoever the chief executive is. And you can't leave that to chance. So that's why these can this committee can be so, so powerful.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Steve, we had a question um come in from Trish um before the webinar, which I'll just one of them which I'll read out now. Yeah, please do. Um's one thing you've seen in a board induction that made a measurable difference to board effectiveness within the first six to twelve months?

SPEAKER_03 19:24

Great question. The answer to that is mentors. Absolutely, more than anything. If you if you nail the mentoring, um, and you know, I've had people say, oh, none of my none of my board members would volunteer to be a mentor. Well, the governance committee chooses one to be a mentor, and it's part of their um part of their job of being on that board. You know, we're all too nice sometimes. It's too important to actually help our new directors get their feet under the table and really understand very quickly what some of the nuances are. And the mentoring is it's powerful. Now, we do have as a downloadable resource that you will get when you get the um the uh the taping of this webinar, um, uh a three-page how mentors and mentees work. It's it's brilliant. I mean, he says modestly, I wrote it, but it actually covers all of the key areas that directors have said, I don't know how to mentor. I'm not suitable for mentoring. Okay, who should identify who a mentor is? So it covers all those sorts of things. So we won't get into that right now. But the the single biggest thing that directors, chairs, and boards have told me have made such a huge difference in their induction program is the inclusion of a formal mentoring program or buddy program, if you don't like the word word mentor. But it's managed and it's monitored. Okay. Sean, was there another question? I think she sent in another one too, which we might as well cover now. Now there was.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

Well, can we while you look at it? Have you got it there, Sean? Because there's one that's really appropriate to watch Steven's talking about.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Yeah, go for it, Linda.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

Yeah, so it's talking about mentoring or about the not-for-profit space and the fact that the notion of not creating extra work for the CEO and management is admirable. But in the not-for-profit space, when board members are voluntary and management get paid, there's perhaps unstated expectation that management carries more of the load. So, what advice would you provide to management on how to get that responsibility shared? Well, my my advice, Stephen, would be maybe we need to give the board some governance development because it's clearly their role to actually manage this, not management. Would you agree, Stephen?

SPEAKER_03 21:46

Yeah, look, I I would agree with that with some additions to it. One of them is that um you will always want to have conversations with management, but you should always want to have conversations with the chairs of the board committees as well. This Is scheduled in advance. You will also want to have conversations with some of your key stakeholders, and heaven forbid, if you're a community group, have conversations with some of your communities. So, for example, with one organization, they had two new directors that have come in, and those two new directors have said they're too busy to go out to community engagement meetings. So, what we've done is we've put in place the fact that it's mandatory and that it will be monitored, and there are consequences if you don't. Stop being polite. We have to put these things in place, not to be draconian, but in the absence of doing that, you will be distracted as a board, and that distraction has economic and strategic implications behind it. It can get you totally, totally distracted. So if we're having too much reliance on the company secretary, on the staff, there will be some reliance on them, but that should not increase. If there's no reliance on the moment, that should increase. We should have some uh uh interactions with them. But uh putting things in place in advance, and this is again where your company secretary comes in, if you have one, or the the board secretary, putting these things in in place in advance so it kicks over every year or every two years or every three years you we have new directors rather than just a wad of papers that's being sent out. Linda, anything else to add on that?

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Yeah, I just wondered if um uh clarity in terms of the position description around what expectations um the organization has of you if you sign up for a director, making it very clear the time requirements. The engagement with stakeholders will vary on the type of entity you are. I'm on a co-op, and that means that I have a lot of days put aside for conferences, regional meetings, and national meetings. So the workload is is different depending on the entity, but if we set it up correctly at the start around what are the expectations of you and do you have the time? Because don't sign up for it, don't apply for it if you don't have the time to dedicate to it. And that doesn't matter whether you're paid or not.

SPEAKER_03 24:25

Yeah, I would reframe that a little bit, Carol, Linda. Sorry. Linda, I would reframe that a little bit saying, do you choose to make the time? There is no such thing as someone not having time. If they say that I don't have time, they're saying I don't choose it. I'm too busy, I don't choose it. I didn't get around to it, I didn't choose it. So it just makes it very, very clear that if someone uses time as a justification, they're saying, I'm not choosing this. You may as well know that up front from them.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

Yeah, and there's a comment here from a voluntary board that there can be barriers to induction for board directors who work full-time. Any thoughts in that context? Well, I'm on two voluntary boards. I work more than full-time, and it's about, as you just said, Stephen, it's you don't sign up for it unless you're going to make the time because you are liable for that entity from the moment you sign on the dotted line and accept the role. And therefore, you need to put in the time so that you can be effective from day one.

SPEAKER_03 25:27

And it's the right thing to do. Let's not forget the stuff. Yeah, it's the right thing to do.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 25:32

Okay. Now, what I've got in here is three stages. You you you don't have to read this now, you can look at it later on. But in essence, you can develop you can develop up over 12 months three stages, two stages, four stages. It doesn't matter. But essentially, the first chunk is building the confidence of the new director, whether or not they're a uh a director that is very experienced or someone from a professional uh group that has been elected onto the board, and this is their first directorship ever. All right, building the confidence in that first five months is so important. And it's not just providing them with the water papers, there's a range of other things in there. Then the next three to four months might be to deepen and apply it, some practice of some of those skills, some reflection. You know, the emotional regulation. Catherine and I had a great chat about this the other day. You know, emotional regulation is well, what do you deal when there's sticky situations? How do you deal with a sticky situation? Yeah, how do you make sure there's psychological safety there? What can you do as a new director? Yeah, how do you handle disagreements? Yeah, we've often seen new directors come in and they're used to because they come from a particular background, might be a legal background or a union background, and they just go for the jugular. And so having some insight and some mentoring about how best to navigate through some of these situations. You know, decision traps, how do you know when you're in a decision trap? This is fantastic stuff. If all the directors have gone through that at some stage, you will get a better set of decision-making people than if no one's gone through it. And then the last uh three months is you know, evolving and leading, getting ready to maybe chair one of the committees. Um, how you can actually walk and talk this notion of being curious, how what that looks like. You know, the the long-term sustainability, looking at that longer term, you know, 10 years, 20 years down the track, having that as a mindset. So you can actually develop this all into your induction program, and many of this is self-regulated. So the director themselves goes through this, but it's monitored uh to make sure that they do go through it. All right, let's move on to the next one. Um, so here's a just a simple cadence that we've found works with many directors, uh, many boards. So the first month is an introduction and orientation. So, yes, you do get a lot of papers, but there's also some insight on you know, here are the three key areas in the strategic plan that we're looking at. Here are the two key pain points in our budgeting process, here are you know, whatever it might be. The second month, the focus on governance and compliance, not just your compliance schedule, but here is the legislation that we're we're covered by, and here are the the two key points you've got to understand as part of understanding our business. And the third month, strategic overview. Now, we've all seen the Strat Plan, we've used it in our board meetings, but let's have a look at some of the implications and some of the assumptions behind that. So we go to that in a little bit more depth as a new director, even though we've used the Strat Plan in the first uh two months anyway. The financial one in month four, so we've read the, you know, we we get our financial reports, but how best do we read them? How best do we interrogate them? How do we make sure that we understand what the business drivers are? How do we question the assumptions in the best possible way behind some of these financial statements? Now, if for whatever reason you wanted to do the financial one first, do it first. But at least you've got it all planned out in advance. Risk management and governance, you know, risk management is not just a risk register, it's actually looking at it from strategic opportunity and risk appetite and a range of things. How do we go about doing that on this board? So these are just examples. We go into the next one, Sean. And then month six and month seven becomes what I've started to call now behavioral governance. You know, what are the behaviors that make a difference? So, how do you read the boardroom? How do you read where things are getting a bit icky? How do you read when things are uh being uh snowballed through? How do you interpret momentum? Are we going too fast, too slow? These are all skills of the high performing director. There is no reason why a new director who has not been on a board cannot be a high performing director given the support during that first 12 months. And then month seven could be appointment to responsibility. So decision making under ambiguity. How many times have you seen people insisting on more information, more information, more information? There's not more information. This is what we've got. So how do we make decision making under those sort of circumstances? How do we handle surprise events? Oh, the CEO has just been um convicted of an offense. What are we going to do? Sort of thing. You know, hope it never happens. Guarantee it will at some stage in your career. So these are sample cadences. They don't have to be in that order, but it's the way you think about things. Linda, your thoughts about cadence.

SPEAKER_02 30:31

Yeah, look, it's great to actually have it written down and then to recognize that each board might have different drivers, so they might move them around a bit. But if you haven't written them down first, then you don't know what you need to put in to the actual overall program. One thing that I'd really push is also to be thinking about. We know that good decisions come from robust debate and constructive challenge. So the way that we ensure that everyone is still getting on okay at the end of those conversations is to have really good trust. And so having good trust comes from actually knowing who's around the table. So make sure you schedule in time for everyone to have meals together, get to know each other, have social events outside of sitting talking about the board papers, so you know who you are, and then you will actually have better relationships, even if you do have to have a bit of a, you know, constructive challenge.

SPEAKER_03 31:31

Catherine, from your viewpoint, leadership and culture and the work that you've been doing.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Um, yeah, one one thing I'm conscious of when any person joins any new team is how well are we preparing the team as well for them to come in. And this is all you know baked into your culture and your norms. Um, but yeah, often, you know, is that we we talk a lot about preparing the person to integrate and to contribute, but it's a it's a two-way process. So the board also does need to do some work to uh perhaps be more open or to be you know reminded about what are the behaviours that are gonna contribute to the participation that we want from this person. And I guess the other thing is often with it, it's easy to think as well in it for for both the person joining the board and and for the board to think, oh, it's gonna be 12 months before this person's any use to us, type thing. But you know, that's not true at all. In fact, the those early months can actually be super valuable because they bring the fresh eyes. So remembering while they're getting up to speed with all of the operational stuff and the seasons of of what you're governing, uh remembering to create, uh, enable, enable that participation as they are going through that process as well.

SPEAKER_03 32:45

Brilliant. Okay. Okay, sure. Next one. So one of the things that I plead for people to consider putting together is a personal onboarding plan or a personal induction plan for every new director that comes on. Now, this has come about time and time again with directors telling me, look, I came onto this board, I had I have extensive community experience, but I know diddly about the finances, but they haven't spent any extra time with me on finances, but that's what I really need. So if you've got a director coming on who's got experience in one area but no experience in other areas, spend more time on those other areas. If you've got someone with extensive finance and risk skills, but don't understand about community engagement or stakeholder engagement, spend more time on that. So developing up a personal onboarding plan is very powerful. And here, here are the sort of steps that make a difference. It's easy. It's a two-pager that you go through, typically with the COSEC and the chair and the new director, where you go through and say, well, let's identify your previous governance or exec experience, your familiarity with decision-making processes, you know, understanding our sector, our complexity, our regulation, where are the gaps in there? What do we need to focus on? What are your priorities? Where your insights add immediate value? You're on this board because of who you are, all right? So, therefore, in what areas should you be able to immediately start adding value to it? Now, what sort of early engagement would you like on the board? Do you want to be part of a working group? Do you want to, you know, what do you want in this? Um, what's your preferred learning style? Do you prefer to have one-on-one conversations? Would you prefer written? Would you prefer, you know, this is all about the learning style and helping that director really understand if we take a half hour or to an hour beforehand and develop this personal onboarding plan for that director, it means it's tailor-made for them, but using already a lot of generic material, but how we deliver that is more specifically to that person. Catherine, thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 34:56

I was actually just distracted by the mentoring question that's come up, sorry. Um so yeah, I think any any personalization um of any onboarding plan and and induction is you know, it's it's just gonna help the relational dynamics to gel as fast as you as fast as they possibly can. Um that's a yes. Do you want me to do you want me to hold hold on the mentoring for a bit?

SPEAKER_03 35:25

Uh no, no, do the mentoring, yeah, that's fine.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Uh so there's just a a question in the in the Q ⁇ A. How can mentoring opportunities be maximized for uh NFP, um, so not for profit uh member elected directors? Uh so we have that lovely representative governance dynamic um who might bring experience to the board but without formal people management or mentoring experience.

SPEAKER_03 35:50

I'm not sure if that's a look at the downloadable resource because it covers that in in detail about how to go about doing it. So so you uh if nothing else from this webinar, you'll find the mentoring stuff absolutely fascinating because it really looks to it in detail. And we have a slide on it as well.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

I was waiting for this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:11

So so in essence, just very very briefly here, you you've the the paired mentor supports the transition of that new director into the integration of the board. Still being their own person, still bringing their unique perspectives, but helps them actually make that transition much uh much more easily. The second mentor that they get in the second months broadens their perspective. Okay, so we now start to get into behavioral stuff. We now get to start start into the the DNA of the organization. A mentor will provide context, they're not there to influence someone's decision. So you don't want the mentor saying, Well, look, most of us agree on this, so you probably should agree with that because that because that way you'll fit in. Not a good mentoring situation. But they provide context so that that individual being mentored can provide their own viewpoint because they've got the right context. It also provides a safe space for questions and insight, and again, the the downloadable uh resource will provide you some great examples of that. Um, it can explain the culture, the processes, and the key stakeholders without taking up board time doing that. And it also uh that that active engagement with the mentors really drives the impact of that new director, potentially from day one. Linda, any thoughts around mentoring that you've come across?

SPEAKER_02 37:34

Well, not really. It's really that insight that if you do senior leadership onboarding well or induction well, you'll be doing a not dissimilar process to what you're doing with your board member induction. So don't forget to go to your GM people in culture or your CE and ask them what they are doing to um deal with induction for their team. And then you can perhaps find some little gems to add to this that are organization specific.

SPEAKER_03 38:09

Okay, sure, next one. So the economic impact. I I I did some research on this, and I just I've got this in here, not not that it's you know the the the ultimate truth, but it's just something to think about. If your induction program can help a new director get their feet under the table and have two months more effective time in that first 12 months, that's 15% increase or 15% decrease of the cost of time that it takes that director to actually add value. So if they're able to um be more effective in a two-month period uh over that two months than they would have otherwise been, that's got a huge cost. Now, this doesn't mean that you're paying your directors necessarily, but if you want to look at the cost of a director on your board, you have a look at what you're paying them, if you're paying them, and there's only about 20% or so that do pay, um what their salary is in their day job if they have a salary, or what's the opportunity cost. That's all a cost. And when it's ineffective and confusing and takes way too much time doing stuff that's not adding value, that's all a cost to the person, to the organization, to the bottom line potentially. Um avoided inefficiency if you are able to save staff time, you know, of um one hour per board meeting by not having to reply to things that they shouldn't have had to reply to, or trying to bring that new director up to speed because they've been confused by something, that has a huge impact on savings. Um, there's a multiplier effect. If you have that new director coming on and really adding value to the board and what they're doing, that's also a behavioral cue for other directors to maybe emulate that as well. So there's that cumulative effect. And then lastly, to sort of summarise, uh you get a good induction program in place for our new directors, it reduces the risk of bad decision making. It it even if it only improves one major decision over their period of term on that on that board, it's so worth it and saves hours of board and staff time. And the the researcher, the anecdotal research says that you can return five to fifty times the amount of time you spent developing that induction program. So there's some some impact and strategic imperatives behind putting this induction in. It's just not a nice to have. It's something way more than the okay. Next one. So um, Catherine, Linda, top two things that you would recommend from your experience that could really help organizations up the induction of their new directors.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

Catherine, do you want to go first? Um I'm I don't mind. We can we can yes, I'm just in the interest of time. Uh top two things, uh, be intentional about it, have a structure, and um recognize that uh sometimes you have to slow down to speed up. So uh if it helps your relational dynamics, you've got to move faster as a team.

SPEAKER_03 41:24

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

Completely agree.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

The thing I would just add is to um have a lookup online, the trust equation. And it is for any type of team, but if you actually put time aside when you're working out your induction process for that social time, that I think makes a huge difference to how the team hum.

SPEAKER_03 41:46

Great, thank you. Okay, so what next? We have provided free access to everyone who watches this webinar, free access to the Induction Insights for Directors brand new program. And there's an introductory preview there, and it provides you with full access to some of the key modules in there, and I guarantee you'll get some some amazingly good ideas from some of that that you can implement straight away. So if you get a chance, download a copy of the um complementary preview of the Induction Insights for Directors program. Uh, and there'll be stuff in there about mentoring, there'll be stuff in there about the first few months and month five and a whole lot of other things in there, but it'll provide you with the impetus where you can actually start working on your own induction program. Okay, thank you, everyone. Sean, over to you, sir.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

Thanks, Stephen. So, everyone, please feel free to connect with our presenters today on LinkedIn. I'm sure they'll look forward to your connection. If you'd like to be put in touch with uh Stephen, Catherine, or Linda, please indicate your interest on the survey at the end as you exit. We have some fantastic webinars coming your way over the next couple of three weeks. So uh take a look on our website. It's on our webinar page. The uh we've got some fantastic topics coming up. So you'll receive an email from me. Uh, it'll be tomorrow now, which will include a recording of today's webinar, the transcript and the presentation slides. Um, just as you leave the webinar, don't uh forget to complete our short one-minute survey. If you are considering board software for your organization, of course, we would love to hear from you. Better still, why not try our free 30-day trial? It's simple and really straightforward. There's no credit cards required to get started. So we'd love to hear from you. So, thank you again for your attendance, everybody. I hope you enjoyed the session today. Thanks again, Stephen, Catherine, Linda, for your conversation. I look forward to seeing you all at our next webinar. Everybody, have a great day.