Brown Governance Co-operative Award for Boardroom Culture

Building on our longstanding relationship, The Canadian Co-operative Association and Brown Governance Inc. are proud to announce the Brown Governance Co-operative Award for Boardroom Culture as part of the CCA Cooperative Governance Awards.

Boardroom dynamics can be viewed as the interplay among three aspects of governance: structure, culture and behaviours. The competence of the individuals on the board, and how directors and management behave in the boardroom are just as important as good structure in ensuring organizational success.

Boardroom culture is the set of unwritten, often even unspoken norms underlying governance power structures. Individual personalities, personal relationships, decision-making processes, and the use of benchmarks and performance measurements are all factors of boardroom culture. This award recognizes that a healthy boardroom culture is critical to governance success.

The Brown Governance award is based on:

• Optimizing culture: demonstrating the ability to adapt your board culture and avoid power extremes to maximize success;
• Effectiveness of culture: understanding and using governance norms effectively in an otherwise challenging situation; and
• Transferability of culture: having enough clarity on the culture in your boardroom that you are able to share your story in such a way that others will be able to learn from and apply your experience.

Application Process


• Submit a case study (maximum three pages) that describes a challenging problem your board faced that required a healthy board culture to address. The case study should include a description of who was involved, the essence of the challenge or problem, the aspects of your boardroom culture (positive or negative) that played a significant part in the solution, any cultural change that ensued, and your opinion on what and how other cooperative directors can learn from your story. Please email your submission to Vicki Weichenthal [weichenthal@browngovernance.com] or fax it to (613) 226-3646.

• Complete The Boardroom Culture Tool©, a board culture assessment survey created by Brown Governance Inc.
  
  

Download complete information regarding the Co-operative Governance Awards here.