Do you garden? This summer I planted our family’s first vegetable patch. It’s only been growing five or six weeks, but I’ve already begun harvesting a host of metaphors. For example, I am learning that no matter how much I plan ahead, I am going to still have to deal with weeds, bugs, and weather. I can become more efficient and more effective at how I manage this ongoing struggle against nature, but the struggle never ends.

Boards are kind of like that too. Managing a board can be an ongoing struggle against human nature, and even on the best cultivated boards someone at some time is going get a bee in their bonnet and undermine the board’s efforts.

Back in 2009, Rebekah Burch Basinger tackled some of these in a great article titled “Anchoring loose cannons and other strategies for peaceful governance.” How do you address a colleague who is telling tales out of school? What about board members who overstep their authority?

Just like gardening, the best lessons for managing a board never grow old. You can read Rebekah’s entire article here.