Delivering exercise through governance! How does that work?

To quote Laura Higgins FCG “A Chair once said to me, "I had no idea a Company Secretary could make this much difference.”

My pathway into governance was by happenstance. As a voluntary company secretary I was mentored by some excellent chairs, and I was fortunate to have excellent training at the Institute of Directors. In addition, the ICSA (now the The Chartered Governance Institute UK & Ireland) Certificate in Charity Management at London South Bank University provided a really good grounding in everything from charity and company finance and law and ‘scanning the horizon’. My greatest achievement was, as a non-accountant, under exam conditions, creating a set of accounts from a 2-page ‘story’. I learned that you do not need a financial brain to understand the accounts- you just need to understand where, why and how the money flows.

Company Secretaries are listed at Companies House as officers, making them as important as the Chair and Treasurer, but the role became optional under the Companies Act 2006, and their importance diminished. Anyone can do that- or can they?

The skill lies in managing the meeting itself. Getting everyone at the table. The continual meeting cycle of creating an agenda, sending out the minutes, following up on actions and starting all over again. You get into a rhythm, and there is a process. The agenda is the building block of a meeting; the minutes show how, when, and by whom decisions are made and as a legal record, require accuracy and attention to detail. I took the time to understand why people disagree, to see it from their perspective, because good Board members do not try to be awkward on purpose.
We then come to implementing the decisions.
As a teacher, who these decisions will impact I ask myself 4 simple questions:
How will it land?
Will everyone understand?
Will they know why?
How do we make sure the message trickles down without dilution or contamination?

In a nutshell: does the person writing the advice know how it will affect the person receiving it?

How does this make me a better trustee?
The chair knows what needs to be done and included, but it is the secretary who weaves it into an agenda so everyone can participate. I have been told that I ask the questions no one else asks- that is because I am reading between the lines always mindful of how the process will impact the person working with it rather than administering it.

Being a Trustee is more than being at the table. It is really about listening, working through the information, and asking questions, and answering emails.

The skills I developed as Company Secretary have given me the understanding of how the meeting process works and the bravery to ask questions. My chairing experiences taught me how to draw out questions, create a decision-making pathway, and give ownership.

Governance is intriguing—it can be exhausting, meticulous, and rewarding- and when you see people exercising you know that all of the meetings you attended and bits of paper you generated along the way were worth the effort!