by Susan Detwiler | Sep 1, 2016 | governance
(Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
It happens all the time, especially when a board is transitioning from a working board to a governing board. The organization grows. It gets more complicated. Board members used to being involved in everything have trouble releasing the details and focusing on the bigger picture.
If the role of the board is to focus on mission and not minutiae, what will make that possible?
What will make it possible to pay special attention to the financial oversight role? Staying informed is important, but the specifics of watching the checkbook and investments; researching where funds should be invested; and drafting financial policies are not everyone’s forté. The specific, detailed work that goes into reviewing the current financials, the research, and the drafting are more easily done by a smaller group of people with financial literacy.
What will make it possible to completely revamp your community relations? Each board member has a role to play in advocacy and public relations, but developing the plan takes expertise. Identifying opportunities for board participation, PR outlets, messaging, advocacy timeline are more easily accomplished by a smaller group of people with community relations and advocacy experience.
Far from removing responsibility from the board, committees are vehicles for building the board by:
- Engaging board members more closely in important work that intimately and explicitly uses their expertise. Why did Carlos come on the board in the first place? What’s his passion and talent? Let him loose!
- Creating opportunities for recruiting strong board members, who have an interest in the organization and now have experience with the organization. Not sure if Jenna is a good fit? Invite her to help on a committee! After working together, she can decide whether she wants to be more involved, and you can see if she’d do well on the board.
- Strengthening the board knowledge base by bringing in individuals who don’t want board service but who want to offer their expertise. Is Shenay an HR lawyer with a heavy travel schedule? A board position may not fit her life right now, but she may be happy to provide guidance on a committee.
- Bolstering long-term engagement and retaining institutional memory and by including board members rotating off the board. Did Max roll off the board after two full terms? It’s a shame to lose his passion and his relationships. Is he a good fit for the community relations committee?
- Enhancing staff – board interactions. Board members typically have little direct experience with staff. But Board member Howard and program director Lisette together research what it will take to develop the metrics they need.
- Streamlining board meetings so the full board can focus on strategy and direction instead of minutiae. With functioning committees, Maureen can chair the board meetings knowing that the background research on the strategic issues has been done. There are people at the table who can answer relevant questions, and the full board can spend time on discussing the implications.
Engage board members, staff and passionate newcomers on committees that use their talents and interests. It’s a pathway to a more engaged and strategic board.
Now¦and in the future.
by Susan Detwiler | Aug 2, 2016 | leadership
Mid-summer. The time of transition. While we enjoy the ease of summer days, Labor Day looms on the horizon, with all the busy-ness that autumn brings.
Many nonprofit organizations take the summer off. Or rather, the Board does. If you generally meet monthly, you skip a meeting in the summer. Or you anticipate that people will be on vacation, so you don’t schedule important votes for the summer meetings. Understandable.
But that doesn’t mean that the work stops.
If your organization is anything like most of the ones I’ve worked with, the Executive Director is busy gearing up for the fall. Behind the scenes, planning meetings are being held. The staff you need to fulfill the newly funded program has to be hired and go through orientation. The new software system has to be run through its paces and tutorials given to staff. That foundation with a September deadline wants a lot of information that won’t write itself.
The Board chair is also busy. That board retreat you’re anticipating in September isn’t going to magically appear. The new board members need to be oriented. The dashboard you want to see each month has to be crafted. That same foundation wants to meet the chair and hear her passion for the work.
“The single best sign of a healthy nonprofit is a strong relationship ¨between the Board Chair and the CEO.”
— Joan Garry Consulting
What could be possible if the Board Chair and the Executive Director were to make a point to meet this summer and see what’s on each other’s plates? What would it make possible if the Chair and the ED were to talk about how they can support each other in their respective roles, particularly as the busy season starts? What would it make possible if you then continued those meetings “ not just about immediate concerns, but to maintain and deepen the working relationship, talk about broad issues that may be on the horizon, consider how to shape the board and administration to enhance mission delivery, reinforce the focus on ultimate goals?
What would that make possible for the organization as a whole, and for the people you serve?
Working together, the Board Chair and Executive Director have enormous influence on the personality and aspirations of an organization. As the Chair orchestrates and influences the board, the ED orchestrates and supervises the staff. When they are in concert with each other, the entire organization is building toward the same goals.
Yet in many organizations, a new Chair steps into the role with little understanding of the pressures on the Executive Director. In return, the ED often has little understanding of the particular strengths and passions of the Chair. Mistakes and missteps happen because they haven’t taken the time to build the rapport that allows them to call on each other as needed.
It’s hard to schedule around many people, and summer is especially hard. But the relative quiet of summer gives the Chair and ED many opportunities to meet. Iced tea? Lemonade?
The Board Chair <-> CEO relationship is so crucial, that the strength of the organization can fluctuate depending on the strength of the relationship. In Delaware, the Delaware Alliance for Nonprofit Advancement has a Fellowship for strengthening just that relationship. How might YOU strengthen that bond? Let’s talk.
by Susan Detwiler | Jun 28, 2016 | leadership
- We’ve never done that before.
- But that’s the way we’ve always done it.
- I don’t know those people.
- But they’re for-profit!
- Why would those liberals care about this?!
- Why would those conservatives care about this!?
Over the years, I’ve heard variations on each one of these statements from nonprofits across the country. Each statement is more a reflection on our own comfort zone than on reality.
When we allow our habits to keep us from trying new things, we keep ourselves from growing.
When we find new board members just like ourselves, we allow our current lives to restrict our future growth.
When we allow our assumptions to keep us from reaching out to a new contact, we allow our assumptions to narrow our view.
Each assumption we make is based on stories we tell ourselves. Because we know one thing about a person, we assume other things about them. We create stories about what they must be like.
- Because she is pro-choice, she must also want to take away our guns.
- Because he wants to repeal Obamacare, he must also be anti-gay.
And since we’re not comfortable with what we believe we know about them, we don’t reach out.
Reaching out to other individuals gives us the opportunity to hear their stories. We learn about a new person and we learn new ways of thinking. Hearing the path they took to their current work gives us points of commonality. They sold encyclopedias door-to-door? So did I! They took their experience with a deaf teammate, and turned it into a new professional path? How inspiring!
When a group of people “ your board of directors, for instance “ learn each other’s story, they become more open to new ideas. They’ve just immersed themselves in hearing new things, and their minds are open to contemplating new ways of looking at the world.
Stepping out of your comfort zone and reaching out to someone you don’t know is immediately rewarding: you meet someone you hadn’t met before, learning new things you hadn’t yet had an opportunity to learn.
With each step we take, it gets easier to see people as individuals, not ideology.
Most importantly, each time you step out of your comfort zone, your comfort zone gets bigger.
Let’s talk about leading your board to push their comfort zone. Reach me at The Detwiler Group or sdetwiler@detwiler.com.
by Susan Detwiler | May 23, 2016 | leadership
The authoritarian approach to management “ top down, we know best, we’ll make the decisions, you just do it “ is usually pretty good at demanding accountability. It is the Board that answers the questions:
- Who will take on this task?
- When will it be accomplished?
- How will we know when it’s accomplished?
But nonprofit management is shifting from authoritarian to stewardship* “ where the board and Executive Director/CEO are partners.
Further on the spectrum, many organizations are shifting to the stakeholder style, in which different groups are represented on the board.
Even further, and many organizations have democratic decision making. Community members, staff, board, administration are all involved in steering the organization.
Most organizations are a blend of two or more of these management approaches, but as authoritarian approaches diminish, what does that mean for accountability?
If there is no single entity at the top that tells you what to do, and punishes you if you don’t do it, how do you make sure it’s going to get done?
Accountability is not just top-down. According Merriam-Webster, accountability means an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions
An obligation or a willingness to accept responsibility.
Accountability can be self-imposed; as management styles evolve to become more participatory, self-imposed accountability emerges.
As responsibility for the organization and outcomes shifts from the top downward, individuals at all levels participate in crafting the desired outcome. Participants become invested in its success. They decide that it’s an important goal; a goal that they want to be part of, take ownership of, and work to accomplish.
This is where accountability is triggered. As an individual takes ownership of some aspect of the project, they answer the first of the three questions:
- Who will take on this task?
But the next two questions must also be answered:
- When will this task be accomplished?
- How will we know when it’s accomplished?
As soon as someone takes the lead on a task, it should become automatic that the next two questions are asked and answered.
A strategic plan crafted by multiple constituents will be enthusiastically embraced. It will have major goals and strategies. But even as responsibility broadens, the questions remain. With every decision, in every meeting:
- Who will take on this task?
- When will it be accomplished?
- How will we know when it’s accomplished?
Accountability requires answers to all three. Make asking them a habit.
*See Governance and Accountability: A Different Choice for Nonprofits, by Tracey Coule in Nonprofit Quarterly.
For more about engaging your board and community, follow me at The Detwiler Group, or contact me directly at sdetwiler@detwiler.com.
by Susan Detwiler | May 9, 2016 | leadership
Congratulations! Being elected Board President is a vote of confidence. Your friends may commiserate, but they don’t realize that you have superpowers.
With you at the helm, you make it possible to build the future your board and staff have envisioned.
It will take time, of course.
- You will partner with your CEO in executing that vision.
- You will mentor board members as they develop their roles and accomplish them.
- You will be cheerleading.
- You will be checking in with the ˜wisdom in the room.‘
You will make it possible for each member of your board to be part of that future.
In short, this organization is now one of the top four priorities in your life, along with your family, your job and possibly your house of worship.
Before your first board meeting as President, take some time to prepare.
What do you know about the people around the table? What do they know about each other? What do they know about you?
What do you want your working relationship to be, with the CEO? With the board?
How do you want to work together?
Google recently discovered that when individuals in groups get to know each other as people, those groups are more productive. So consider, what does it make possible when each board member feels a real part of the group? What can you do to create that camaraderie?
The mechanics of being board president may be clear: preside at meetings; sign contracts; represent the organization in community meetings.
But developing a board that builds a future together “ that’s your superpower.
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