Board Development
Don't Waste Their Time - Reflections on Board Member Involvement, Good and Bad
The See-saw
We have all been there…to the board meeting where one or two members just won’t let go of a topic, no matter how ready everyone else is to move forward. We have also all been to the meeting in which a long agenda is laboriously worked through with little discussion – only to be followed up by remarks from earnest but disgruntled members that the meetings are a waste of their time.
So what is the right balance of engagement and detachment with our board members? And how do we arrive at it? It is helpful to consider the question from two angles, during regular board meetings and between them.
Staying Usefully Engaged: Between Meetings
Recommended Standing Committees for Boards of Directors
Who needs yet another regular meeting shoehorned into an already over-extended schedule? No one, I realize. Especially in the world of small to midsize nonprofit organizations, where so many of us play multiple roles, just preparing for the regular board meeting can be a real challenge. Yet the truth is that boards can in fact accomplish more if their meetings are not always meetings of a committee of the whole. A few key committees with clear mandates can result not only in more productive board meetings but also more productive boards of directors over all. So here is my list of standing committees that I recommend for nearly all boards
Recommended Standing Committees for Boards of Directors
Meetings: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
A Universal Woe
We all have to put up with them. Badly run meetings are a fact of organizational life and they waste our time, fray our nerves, and frustrate those who just want to get the job done and go home. Sometimes they can even get so ugly that we wish we had not even been there. Good ones – in which the job does get done and the participants all depart still talking to each other are not as common as they could be.
Content
Over all, get clear on the purpose. Is there a decision to be made? Is information to be shared? Is brainstorming to be done? There can be multiple purposes but whatever they are, know them before you even walk in the door.
Updating the Board Manual
For many nonprofit organizations, the fall marks the start of a new round of board meetings. If you are thinking it's time to update the board manual, here is an outline of what should be included in it. Optimally, the manual should be given to the board at the time of its annual new member orientation. And a word about production: Put it in loose-leaf format in order to facilitate updates.
Board Development Planning & Training
Develop
A board’s job is not done until it has led its organization – not just to a clearer sense of its mission – but to better performance.
-- Christine W. Letts, William P. Ryan and Allen Grossman
OD180 offers two ways of strengthening the performance of boards of directors. The first is a board training conference. The other is the preparation of a board development plan.
Board Training Conference
Process Overview
Who We Are: Personal Introductions
Express
Let us not talk of karma, but simply of our responsibility toward the whole world.
-- His Holiness, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
The consultant-client relationship often becomes a close one and that is not surprising. In most successful consultations, the effort begins with some sense of vulnerability on both sides but then develops into a happy, collaborative and fruitful partnership. Consequently, mutual trust and appreciation grow over the course of the endeavor.
