It May Be Time For Some Conflict

The board feels it serves no real purpose other than rubberstamping the leader’s ideas.

The leader goes into a board meeting knowing there is a landmine but not knowing where it is.

The agenda and the decisions are predetermined in meetings held between the chair and the leader so that the board meeting feels like an FYI session.

The default position of the board and the leader is mistrust.

A board member resigns mid-term because “my schedule doesn’t allow me to give board matters the attention they deserve”.

The leader has every decision queried and critiqued against some invisible standard.

Leaders resign with anemic explanations for their untimely departure.

The board is disappointed with the lack of progress made by the leader in recruiting new board members.

Do one or more of these situations resonate with you? It isn’t a full blown conflict resolution circumstance (yet), so you aren’t ready for an outside viewpoint yet. But the lack of conflict may very well be the problem. Parking lot conversations and backroom deals serve to keep the conflict from floating to the surface. Or feeding a family and paying a mortgage may be a higher priority for the leader than the risk associated with resigning and finding a new job.

Refusing to ignore the problem is the first step toward dealing with the problem. Rather than taking Tylenol for the governance toothache, it may be time to call a dentist. The short term pain will be well worth dealing with the long term problem.

Kinda Doing Policy Governance®

I was hardly aware of Policy Governance® when I was serving with an organization that contemplated moving in that direction. They engaged a consultant who said he had experience with the Policy Governance model. In retrospect it appears he had experience in governing by policy, which is not close to the same thing. Policy Governance is a series of principles which are intended to be integrated as a whole. When that is not done, the integrity of the Policy Governance model developed by John Carver, becomes compromised as pieces of it are taken and added capriciously to whatever system (or non-system) is currently in place. This is a common misconception: that having a bunch of board developed policies in itself makes a board a Policy Governance board. 
 

A frequent challenge comes with the Board that acknowledges that it has adopted Policy Governance at some time in the past but it has not fully implemented the model. John Carver says that using parts of a system can result in inadequate or even undesirable performance.  Sometimes the reason for not carrying through is because of an incomplete or inadequate understanding of the model. This can result in a tried that- didn’t work perspective. Another reason for aborting or abandoning Policy Governance is the lack of discipline on the part of the board to follow through on the rigorous monitoring of the limitation polices imposed on the leader. There can even be a failure on the part of the board to review its own policies which it previously agreed to abide by.

I enjoy working with these organizations, because they have enough of a taste to at least consider Policy Governance and therefore together we can build on that foundation. If you are a ministry like this, I would love to opportunity to connect with you.

The Ideal Consulting Client

Recently I was challenged to consider the question,  “What is your ideal consulting client”. The answer should have rolled off my tongue, seeing that consulting is what I do with the bulk of my time.  But it didn’t. So I began to search for the answer by looking at the things I value.

My book, A Guide to Governing Charities won the Canadian Leadership Book of the Year in 2012. On occasion I have been with a friend who has introduced me to someone as an award winning author. After the obligatory congratulations are expressed, the question is asked, “So what is the book about”? “It’s about governing charities” I mumble. The immediate reply is something like “it sounds interesting”, followed by the details of their visit to the vet so their chihuahua could be treated for a blocked intestine.

The only thing that my consulting services to boards and vets working with constipated chihuahuas have in common is a felt need. Something is happening or not happening resulting in a lot of noise but little progress. Potential clients do not see my services and say “Wow, I would like that.” It is more often fuelled by a problem that does not appear to have an easy solution.  My services are only of interest and value to leaders and directors of churches and mission organizations or those who influence them. So engaging ideal clients within an already limited demographic is somewhat challenging, but not unheard of.  After all you are reading this blog.

Governance issues are seldom seen as a problem in themselves. They evidence themselves in other ways such as dissatisfaction with the leader or directors feeling irrelevant. But boards may not see this as a governance issue.

So my role is to help the potential client describe the problem and then describe the solution in a way that can be measured or stated in relation to how a similar event in the future would be improved. Things will be better because this won’t happen or that would be handled in a different way.

The ideal client is the board of a mission agency, church, school or camp that is not satisfied with where it is and wants to move from where it is to where it wants to be.