Board Governance Model
The Board of any organization must be one of its best assets. To that end, the Foundation needs to implement structure and tools that will allow the Board to become optimal in its stewardship of the Foundation’s missions. One of the most sweeping and effective reforms that could be implemented immediately is an assessment process.
In summary, the advantages of a Board Assessment process will seem self-evident and include the following:
- Board and executive role clarification;
- Tracking present and needed representation of skills and perspectives;
- Providing explicit and consensual corporate objectives and action steps’
- Benchmarking efficacy and progress; and
- Providing evidence of such in order to solidify Member confidence in the Foundation’s corporate governance.
Any disadvantages aren’t truly disadvantages to the assessment tools, but rather caveats of implementation to be avoided, since the process can be rife with political and methodology considerations and may impact the subsequent kind and quality of information extracted. The following suggestions address ways to minimize or negate any anticipated concerns.
The first items to define are what and why. What standards are being evaluated, and to what end? Here, the why, or to what end is assumed to be for all of the reasons stated above: clarification, tracking of representation, objective unity, benchmarking, and evidence of competent stewardship.
As to what or how, the process of clarification needs to occur on a corporate, board and individual level. Initially, the executive staff and board members need to meet in their entirety to propose and adopt the role jurisdiction of each body. After having done so, the group (most likely executive staff, possibly both exec and board) responsible for corporate strategy needs to meet and determine the goals and consequent action steps for an annual, 3-year and 5-year business plan. It is imperative that these plans include a deadline for each action step to which everyone is committed to adhere.
If it is the desire of the Foundation to keep corporate strategy staunchly within the jurisdiction of the executive staff, these determinations should be presented to the Board, with some opportunity for suggestions and minor revisions. If, however, it is the Foundation’s desire to create a strong development partnership with the Board, then the determinations should be presented to the Board as a working plan that should then be amended and filled-out by Board input. Obviously, the benefits of keeping all corporate strategy within the executive domain are to create clear lines of accountability and avoid the problem of “too many cooks,” especially since many board members may not be expert in the missions that the Foundation will encompass. On the other hand, in order to avoid fostering an environment of “executives for life,” the co-creation of these goals and action steps with the Board could provide necessary and valuable objectivity and perspective with regard to meeting member needs—in short, the Board can “short-circuit” the frequently inevitable political plaque and ideology entrenchment among executives, keeping the Foundation’s ongoing development fluid and energetic.
Next, in response to the corporate objectives, each board member needs to make a grid that includes the following information:
- An iteration of the agreed upon corporate goals and action steps
- identifying the special abilities and/or contacts of the individual board member which can facilitate the achievement of these goals;
- identifying the personal action steps which should be taken by the individual board member in order to facilitate the achievement of these goals; and
- deadlines for action steps that support the “big picture” deadlines.
- A list of the board member’s personal vision for the Foundation
- “mapping out” the benefit of this vision to the Foundation’s mission;
- developing explicit benchmarking goals and action steps;
- identifying the special abilities and/or contacts of the board member which can facilitate the achievement of these goals; and
- identifying the personal action steps which should be taken by the board member in order to facilitate the achievement of these goals;
- deadlines for action steps.
By documenting each member’s perceived personal contribution to the company’s objectives, the Foundation would be able to periodically review the skills and perspectives represented on the current board, thus potentially using this as a tool for identifying future recruitment needs. By allowing each member to create his/her own set of objectives with regard to the enhancement of the Foundation’s business, the organization ensures that its board members are constantly challenged and engaged, thus making board membership an attractive proposition for the “best and brightest” in the community, while also benefiting from their unique talents and “cream” achievements.
It is important that these “Objective and Obtainment Grids” are somewhat flexible with regard to the action steps, as further information gained along the way may indicate more appropriate actions, but quite fixed with regard to the overall agenda and deadlines, since a continuously changing target creates a never-ending array of problems which ultimately sabotage the best-laid plans. As an assessment tool, it is also essential that these grids be included in a public document for review (board minutes or some other medium). At the end of each period, this grid should be literally checked against actual achievements.
This portion of the process is one of the most politically sensitive. On the one hand, as competent and confident business partners, the need and desirability for an assessment tool is obvious. On the other hand, it is vital that this tool not be used for the airing of ideological dispute. And, while it is important that each member has the opportunity to self-evaluate performance, it is equally important that each member has the opportunity to realize how peers perceive his/her performance. Consequently, to ensure that all objectives are reached, the final assessment must include four (4) perspectives: self, allied, opposed and random.
At the end of each objective period (annual, 3-year, 5-year), each board member should complete a self-evaluation, using the initial “Objective and Obtainment Grid” as the criteria of achievement, need for improvement, and new or tangential goals (new goals which are a direct result of the former objectives). Like the initial grid, this completed self-assessment should be included in a public forum to which colleagues could refer. Next, the board member should choose another member to likewise evaluate his/her performance against the grid criteria. This member will represent the allied perspective, since it is assumed that the board member will choose someone with whom he/she has worked closely and thus is most likely of a comparable mindset. Then, a member of the executive staff, or by executive consensus, should choose another board member who is known to maintain an ideologically or experientially disparate position. Representing the opposed perspective, this member’s identity ideally should be anonymous in order to maintain smooth working relationships, unless it is determined that anonymity would contribute to a corrosive professional paranoia and thus would be more detrimental than potentially negative feedback. Lastly, a random perspective should be chosen, preferably by a truly random method (such as drawing numbers). If the Foundation wishes to use these evaluations as a platform for elections (by distributing evaluation summaries), and as a extremely effective means of instilling confidence in the membership, using a small number of members as the random perspective would be ideal. In this scenario, the Foundation would mail out a copy, perhaps abridged, of the board member’s initial grid and self-evaluation, soliciting comment in the form of a structured survey from members randomly chosen. In this way, the membership feels that it has a dynamic role in the leadership and direction of the organization.
Once all of these perspectives have been completed, the board member should receive a packet with the compiled feedback. It is not necessary that this compilation be public, unless there is a strong sentiment that the opportunity for responsiveness is being underutilized.
Although not directly related to an assessment tool per se, all of the material stressed the importance of two ideas that seem particularly worthy of consideration at the Foundation. First, it is vital that a firm, consensual objective is established before any action is planned or taken. Interdepartmental Total Quality Improvement Councils, or their counterparts, are not an effective or an appropriate venue for determining corporate objectives or missions: this is the function of executive (and potentially board) leadership. Once everyone is “on the same page,” then TQI Councils can be used to “hammer out” representative and partnered action steps. By handling decision-making in this way, redundancy and policy/action corrections are minimized and creative energies are maximized.
It is equally important that once missions are established and processes to support these missions implemented, the organization remain firm against acting as an agent for whimsical requests. The diversion of creativity and resources in order to accommodate these requests—whether by a large donor or an esteemed business partner—ultimately undermines the Foundation’s flow towards its fundamental missions.
Second, in a similar vein, the bulk of valuable time of board meetings should not be spent with “where we’re at…” presentations, nor necessarily with presentations justifying “why we’re not at…” Rather, this information should be documented in such a way that each board member can review status updates prior to the board meeting. This frees up the board’s time at the meeting to engage productively in active problem and resource resolution, and “next step” formulations. The expertise represented and the creativity fostered by a joint board/executive meeting should not be squandered with banal “review.”