Your board needs to get the job done and get results if it is going to meet the members' needs. In other words it needs to be effective. Effective governance means making sure the co-op's business is carried out - and looking down the road to see what lies ahead.

Too many boards of all kinds-profit and non-profit alike-seem to snooze their way through the business of the organization, only to wake up to a crisis. This is one of the biggest weaknesses in governance as it's often practised: boards that are asleep at the wheel. Your board needs to do better than that.

Effective governance requires

• having a clear sense of what the board is trying to get done
• making sure that decisions and plans lead to action and results
• looking ahead-paying attention to what's on the horizon for your co-op
• ensuring that efficient management is in place for the co-op
• getting the relationships right between the board, managers and committees, so people aren't tripping over each other - or leaving their jobs to others.

Effective governance isn't rocket science. It's basic stuff, like getting organized, having the information the board needs to get the job done and working in partnership with competent management. And as we'll see, training for directors really helps the board to be more effective.

Here are signs that your board is effective at getting results:

• the board plans for the co-op's operations and measures whether the plan is carried out
• the board measures the quality of the co-op's management