While boards acknowledge they bear ultimate responsibility and accountability for their organizations' affairs, governance quality is often far from optimal. The High- Performance Board offers pragmatic and candid advice about what your board must do to maximize performance and contributions. The authors provide sixty-four principles designed to help your board achieve peak performance. They describe every principle in detail and present best practices and practical applications for each one. Each section of the book concludes with a board check-up-a set of questions that can be used to assess your board in light of the principles. A quick read for busy board members, this book is the ultimate board "drivers' manual."

Dennis D. Pointer has worked with more than four hundred clients asa consultant, retreat facilitator, and speaker. His firm, Dennis D.Pointer& Associates, provides governance consulting, retreatfacilitation, assessment, redesign, and development services tononprofit organizations, commercial corporations, and governmentagencies. He is vice president and partner, American Governance andLeadership group LLC. Pointer is also Hanlon Professor of HealthPolicy and Research, San Diego State University. He is also theAustin Ross Professor, Department of Health Services, School ofPublic Health and Community Medicine, University of Washington(Seattle).
James E. (Jamie) Orlikoff is president of Orlikoff and Associates,Inc., a firm specializing in governance improvement and leadershipdevelopment. He is executive director of the American Governanceand Leadership Group LLC and the national advisor on governance andleadership to the American Hospital Association. In these variouscapacities, he has worked with over six hundred organizations tostrengthen their governance effectiveness and efficiency. Orlikoffserves on the board of trustees of Pitzer College in Claremont,California.

Figures and Check-Ups.

Preface.

About the Authors.

1. Governance Basics.

2. Obligations.

3. Functioning: Responsibilities.

4. Functioning: Roles.

5. Structure.

6. Composition.

7. Infrastructure.

8. Transforming Your Board.

Resources.

A. The Sixty-Four Principles.

B. Illustrative Board Policies.

C. Sample Committee Charters.

D. Illustrative Board Chair Position Description.

E. Illustrative Governance Principles.

F. For Further Reading.

Index.