Build Better Boards

In this episode of Build Better Boards, hosts Dr. Keri Jacobs and Richard Fagerlin open a new series on running strategic decisions through the lens of the seven cooperative principles, using growth as the entry point.The dual mandate: Co-op leaders carry two responsibilities at once: running a competitive, sustainable business and maintaining a member-centric enterprise grounded in principles. Holding both is the tension every big decision should be tested against.The central question for any growth decision: Will this strengthen or weaken the cooperative? Keri frames strength through cooperative health, which depends on alignment across four structures: governance and control, ownership, member benefits, and purpose.Why member heterogeneity matters: As members grow more dissimilar in size, needs, and how they use the co-op, decisions that serve the whole get harder. Friction in the boardroom and the membership often shows up here before it reaches the financials.Representation and understanding in the boardroom: Richard and Keri work through the question of how a board can reflect a diverse membership while also building shared understanding across every segment, especially when a small share of members drives most of the volume.Naming the trade-offs out loud: Every yes is also a no. Boards benefit from naming what a decision sets aside, where it benefits members differently, and how it aligns with the strategy set by directors who came before them.This is the first in a series. Future episodes will go deeper into applying the principles to specific strategic decisions.Follow Build Better Boards on LinkedIn for updates and join the conversation. Find show notes and more at buildbetterboards.com/podcast.

In this episode of Build Better Boards, hosts Dr. Keri Jacobs, Richard Fagerlin, and Mitch Majeski explore what a director owes the board after voting no.Agreement and alignment are different jobs: Agreement is a yes or no on the decision itself. Alignment is the commitment to carry that decision forward as your own once the board has made it, which the hosts tie directly to fiduciary duty.Alignment depends on real disagreement: A board only reaches true alignment when it has weighed real options. If every voice nods along, what you have is general agreement, not a group that wrestled with the choice.The decision becomes new data: Once a vote is settled, it is part of the hand you play next. A director who keeps reopening the past works against the board's ability to move, while one who absorbs the outcome and builds on it keeps it healthy.Fake alignment has tells: A run of unanimous votes on big questions, thin discussion, and disengaged body language can signal agreement on the surface and quiet reservations underneath. Naming a dissenter or devil's advocate, and rotating who plays the role, keeps the debate honest.Represent decisions as the board's, not your own: Out in the membership, speak as "we decided," not "the vote was seven to four." Lead with the shared reasoning, acknowledge that the debate happened, and leave the tally in the boardroom.Follow Build Better Boards on LinkedIn for updates and join the conversation. Find show notes and more at buildbetterboards.com/podcast.

In this episode of Build Better Boards, hosts Mitch Majeski, Dr. Keri Jacobs, and Richard Fagerlin continue the principled-lens series that began in Episode 39, "Growth Through a Principled Lens: Part I." The conversation widens from growth to how a board can pressure-test any progressive decision without slowing it down.All seven principles, as a decision lens: Keri lays out the full set (P1 voluntary and open membership, P2 democratic member control, P3 member economic participation, P4 autonomy and independence, P5 education, training, and information, P6 cooperation among cooperatives, and P7 concern for community), then uses several of them to test a strategic decision.The questions the principles raise: P1 asks whether a decision grows member participation or customer participation, and whether membership stays meaningful. P3 asks for a clear line to member value beyond patronage. P5 asks whether members understand the decision and how the board plans to communicate it.The board's job is to pressure-test, then prepare the room: Directors ask whether a strategy holds up rather than authoring it, and watch for when personal risk tolerance is standing in for board responsibility. Ahead of a contentious decision, the work shifts to setting the board's mindset and recommitting to the mission, vision, and competitive strategy the board set earlier.Member or customer: Deliberate growth into non-member business can strengthen the co-op when the board names it as such and keeps the line back to member benefit clear. That clarity starts with frontline culture, illustrated with Ritz-Carlton and Chick-fil-A.A pressure-test for any major decision: The hosts close with a set of questions a board can run before approving, captured below.Questions to bring to a big decision:What would have to be true for this to be the right callDoes this grow member participation or customer participation?Can we draw a clear line from this decision to member value?Does it change our control, ownership, benefits, or purpose, in fact or in perception?How will we explain it to members, and will they understand the value to them?Would we still do it if we knew it would not pay off financially?Follow Build Better Boards on LinkedIn for updates and join the conversation. Find show notes and more at buildbetterboards.com/podcast.

In this episode of Build Better Boards, host Richard Fagerlin talks with Byron Enix (retired President & CEO, American AgCredit) about what boards owe their organizations before, during, and after a CEO transition.The three real jobs of a director: Accountability, strategy, and risk. Get those right and CEO selection becomes the natural outcome of good governance.Build the playbook before you need it: Draft a CEO transition playbook long before it's needed, with clear expectations for the board, the selection committee, leadership, and any outside search firm. The firm works for you.Keep the full board in the decision: A selection committee can run the process, but the full board needs to stay engaged enough to test the recommendation. The CEO also has a role to play in preparing the organization, within clear boundaries around confidentiality and influence.Honoring tenure without losing honesty: Long-tenured CEOs deserve real respect for what they've built, and a board willing to have honest conversations about present performance and future needs.Pay for performance, not for baseline: Big checks for big expectations make sense. Incentives layered on top of a CEO simply doing the job they were hired to do do not.Connect with Byron on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/byron-enix-2943b153/. Find show notes and more at buildbetterboards.com/podcast.

In this episode of Build Better Boards, hosts Dr. Keri Jacobs and Richard Fagerlin dig into CEO succession planning, using Egon Zehnder's article "CEO Succession Planning for Tomorrow's Success" as a launch point for what boards should actually be doing right now.Succession is not search: Search is the moment you pick someone. Succession is everything that happens in the years before. Most boards collapse the two and start far too late.The math is coming: In rural electric alone, roughly 500 of 900 CEOs will be eligible to retire in the next five years. One in three CEOs across sectors exit with little or no notice. If your board hasn't talked about this, that's the risk.Six benefits of starting early: Risk mitigation, board alignment, development of internal candidates, honest assessment of external candidates, smoother transitions, and strategic continuity. Keri and Richard walk through each with examples from co-op boardrooms.Five obstacles to name out loud: Delegating the process to an incumbent CEO with conflicting interests, starting too late, insufficient board exposure to internal candidates, bias toward external hires, and resistance to change when a popular CEO departs.Say goodbye to the long goodbye: Richard pushes back on drawn-out transitions. Continuity matters. Endless overlap does not. The day you announce the new CEO is often the day they should be the CEO.Responsible vs. accountable: The CEO is responsible for executing a leadership development strategy. The board is accountable for ensuring one exists. Keri frames this as part of a board's fiduciary duty.Find show notes and more at buildbetterboards.com/podcast.