Duty of Skill
By: Debi Peverill
Tags: Governance, Board, Productivity, Meetings, Committee

Board members must have the skills necessary to effectively lead the organization toward achieving their goals. No one person has all of these skills, which is why a board is composed of more than one person.

The types of skills which are generally needed on a board include financial, legal, human resources, fund raising, public relations and information technology skills. This is not an all inclusive list and your group could have more specific skills.

Some groups will have taken the time to create a skills matrix, which is what it sounds like. A grid of all the skills that are required on a board and a list of the board members with an indication if they have a member, or members, who have those skills. This helps the organization identify if there are any holes that need to be filled on the board.

A simple example is the finance function. Every board member should be able to read a set of financial statements and understand a budget. On the skill matrix under each board members name there would be a checkmark, indicating that this person did possess those skills. In addition there should be a member or two who have deeper financial knowledge. An accountant or a banker who can provide advice about financial decisions. This is another skill that not every board member has to possess.

Bring your skills to the board room table.

The duty of skill requires that each board member apply all their skills. If you have legal or finance skills then you are expected to apply them. If there is an issue where your skills would expect to be used then you should do so. An example — the board is considering terminating the employment of their executive director. One would expect that the board members with legal skills and the board members with human resources skills would speak up if they see a problem with this plan. An example would be termination with cause when the group has never done a performance appraisal. The board members should alert the rest of the board to these dangers.

A common skill is being new. A board member who is new to the board is the one who could say “Why do we do this?” The remainder of the board need to explain the reasoning. This is a valuable exercise. The whole board gets to consider the why of the procedure being questioned. Once you have served on a board for awhile you are used to the processes and no longer ask these questions.

Some organizations are member driven — which usually means that the members have one type of skill in common. A bar society’s members are lawyers, a medical society’s members are doctors, you get the idea. On that type of board there is a different kind of skill needed, the skill of being a “lay” member. This is a person who is not a lawyer or a doctor, so has not been drinking the same Kool aid as the rest of them and can explain how the general public feels about some of the ideas that the professionals recommend.

The duty of skill has nuances depending on what type of organization we are talking about but some things are the same for every board. Each board has to have a full suite of skills represented on the board. Every board member has to exercise all the skills that they possess.