Good Governance: Build consensus on diversity in the boardroom
There’s a distinction between saying diversity is important and doing something about it.
In the hundreds and hundreds of interviews we conduct each year with credit union directors and senior management, we always probe the question, “What does the board of the future look like for your credit union?”
We are encouraged to hear that directors’ ultimate wish list for themselves includes such attributes as strategic thinkers, team players, credit union movement-devotees and mission-driven members … all good things. We also hear things like, “We need to be more diverse,” which is also great. But when we ask these leaders to expand on how they define “more diverse” we get a lot of different answers.
To some directors, diversity is including visible minorities. To others, it’s adding a new professional expertise or geographic region. What is curious however is that directors on the same board will often share vastly different understandings of what it means to be “more diverse.”
The State of Credit Union Governance 2020 reported that respondents listed demographic diversity as their No. 1 priority (53%) when recruiting new board members. However, when that same group of respondents was asked what they value most in the boardroom, demographic diversity slipped to No. 6 (31%).
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