High performing boards only occur one of two ways:  only highly effective experienced trustees are ever recruited or staff, and eventually board leaders, devote a lot of time to support a learning culture for trustees.  The first method is extremely rare, so most of us have to be good at helping board members to perform.  Of course it is also rarely the case that brand new organizations start out devoting adequate attention to the enabling of board members.  Most new organizations are just grateful to get enough board members to incorporate and hold regular meetings, regardless of the actual value provided by board members.

So, most of the time, we have to take stock of where we are, counting the blessings of whatever board performance culture we are faced with and try to move forward/upward, without offending existing members.  Ideally, board members themselves will want to be the best that they can be for an organization whose mission they support but that attitude is rare.  No, usually when we take a snapshot of an existing board culture, we find that trustees are there for different reasons and have varying expectations about what is required of them and varying degrees of motivation to do more, even if asked, even if training is provided.

What to do?  Tough love is frequently called for but rarely provided, by either staff or board leaders, to the majority of board members.  Love, because if we care about the organization’s success, then we have to care about the effectiveness of individual board members and need to engage them creatively in a growth path that works for them as individuals.  Tough, because not matter how hard you try, you can’t take away the basic responsibilities of board members and their accountability to the community, to the organization and to each other.  It is painful to raise the performance bar in the middle of a board member’s term but not doing so would be undermining the very value that we place on nonprofit organizations to provide value to the community.  It is hard but it must be done.  Love is tough but it is what we all need.   

Comments

Add New Search

Write comment
Name:
Email:
Title:
UBBCode:	-color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.22

3.22 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."