DFO hones governance

Sunday, February 1, 2009

© Copyright AgMedia Inc

by SUSAN MANN

The board of Dairy Farmers of Ontario has approved recommendations to implement its governance report at its regular board meeting last week.

DFO general manager Peter Gould says there are 30 to 40 recommendations and it will take some time before they’re all put in place. “We’ve always said that it’s a process and it’s going to take a period of time.”

Implementing the recommendations is to begin immediately. The next step for DFO is to assign responsibilities for the various recommendations and establish priorities.

At this year’s annual meeting in January, Gould told delegates that governance is “how we do things and not what we do.”

He also touched on a few highlights in the governance review report, including:

• DFO needs to improve its communication of both long-term directions and short-term actions;
• designating spokespeople so not everyone with an opinion speaks on behalf of the organization;
• better define the role of board members and give their evaluation and training more attention;
• focus the board on policy making and reduce its involvement in regular operations and administration; andimproving the process around strategic planning, particularly monitoring and reviewing the plan and making adjustments as circumstances change.

“Some of the themes coming out of the governance review were to be both much more transparent and much more proactive,” Gould notes, adding DFO put the governance review report on its web site and will put its strategic plan there too.

Before the governance review, DFO wouldn’t have thought to post the strategic plan on its web site, he says. BF