In this episode we're focusing on actions or nonactions of boards at meetings.
We're talking about boards in such a way to remind all of us, board members or staff members, to stay awake and do not drink and drive. Or fall asleep at the wheel.
Admit it --- some folks actually feel a bit elevated, to another plain from the rest of us, by titles and "positions" and that alone can lead to a slight feeling of tipsiness with the "power" of being board or leader.
So staying sober and awake is imperative! Board and leaders are not royalty; they are the servants of the organization --- servant leaders.
FIRST: You cannot save the world if you are drunk
--- unless, and this is such as slight slim chance that it's not really acceptable --- unless you were Luke Skywalker and you'd had to get completely sloushed before you'd agree to get into that little fighter plane at the end of the first Star Wars movie (Episode IV) --- and yet were still able to aim your weapons to blow up the Deathstar. But that is impossible! He may have been high listening to voices, but he was also sober. And he was blowing something up.
Ah, but wait, what about Independence Day? Randy Quaid's broken-down fighter pilot raving about his abduction by aliens is always drunk --- and he saved the world with his kamakazie plunge into the alien's vessel at the end of the movie. Okay, he may have been drunk when he volunteered, but they poured gallons of hot coffee down him before he took off.
And there is a basic point which we need to make here
--- plowing into a brick wall sober or drunk to save the world is what happens to staff with organizations, not board members. Board members are seldom seen taking on the world through a form of professional suicide. In fact, they jump ship for all kinds of reasons to suit their time and pleasure. And look stunned to the point of turning into a brick wall when courageous and terrified staff members try to warn them that the ship has a leak and something must be done immediately or it is going down.
If it is a slow leak, the ship can be listing for a long time before it sinks, it might even come to rest on the water without being completely submerged, therefore still appearing to be working. But it is not --- the purpose of a ship is to sail, not to do a slightly believable job of acting like it has not sunk because it's hit rock bottom.
But how do you know if the board is driving drunk? (sailing drunk?)
Point one: Many boards operate as though they are slightly inebriated --- all the time, but would be shocked if you said they were behaving as though drunk. Watch this carefully. Remember, the first sign of a true drunk is how very carefully he attempts to act as though he is not drunk. A good sign would be how much hilarious laughter and joking goes on in relationship to the dramatic drop in organizational income --- if these two variables are moving in opposite directions, then the board is most definitely sailing/driving drunk. Othewise, how could there be laughter in the face of disaster.
Point two: Most boards are not so sloshed that they can't sit up straight and get their food from their plate into their mouths, or recognize when they are asked a question or need to raise their hand to vote. But sloshed enough that any inclination to ask a question that would put anyone else in an awkward position to answer --- well they just don't do it because it would ruin the atmosphere of comradery at the party. Comradery must be maintained at all times; anything else is just not acceptable!
Point three: Their slight inebriation leads them into a dangerous state that borders between collusion and neglect; collude to keep the atmosphere supportive, neglect and go with the flow because it means the meeting will end on an up note, will not go beyond the set ending time, and they can get out of there without feeling responsible. If comradery increases as income and staff decrease, then be assured that your board is sailing drunk.
Point four: They give a good performance of grave concern at the appropriate points in the meeting when dollars are being discussed, but quickly jump back into a state of high comradery with a joke or two about money. And accept and are relieved at whatever explanation is given by the finance committee or director. Whew! Made it through that one, they are thinking, and remove their sober masks for bright smiling faces. Yes!!! They are driving drunk.
Point five: They are basically convivial, want to maintain an act of friendship with the others around the table. There are very few who join a board to create awkward, painful, embarrassing moments for others. Anyone acting like anything less than politically-correct professionals at the board meeting are given a wide berth or treated "extra-special" but their stated concerns or questions are also treated "as extra-special" and therefore not truly taken into account. These professional board members in today's atmosphere have been trained to treat outsiders like tolerated but necessary pets.
Point six: At the end of the meeting, board members suddenly and decisively all split, not to be seen again until the next meeting they make. And as every staff leader knows, the longer the time between meetings the shorter the memories of board members as to what was going to take place between the meetings. If they really do not bring back up an unanswered question about a critical issue (if it was asked) from a previous meeting, then yes they are driving drunk.
If there are problems with an organization why doesn't the board act responsibly?
Because the lights are still on, nice lunches are still servced, and the CEO gave a hell of a presentation about something. And everyone is being exceptionally nice.
Point seven: These 12 to 15 to 30 individuals who by law are fiscially and legally accountable for the organization, bound to ante up or make public their participation if something goes terribly wrong. But people don't join boards thinking they will have to answer questions from the press as to why their organization hasn't paid payroll taxes for four years or why they did not know their finance director was embezzoling $ 300,000 from the bank accounts over a couple of years. They join because, well, well they join for a lot of reasons, most of them not because their neighbor asked them, or their company assigned them or their daughter begged them or their boss invited them, ect. Anyway, they certainly do not believe that any board they join would actually be a board where something bad happens or the board has to make difficult and potentially threatening decisions to and for someone(s).
Remember Potential Board Members: Before you join, ask a lot of questions that you will hesitate to ask once you become slightly inebriated by the third board meeting.
Remember Effective Staff Leaders: Encourage the asking of awkward questions, prepare yourself for them, and insist that they are answered. Try at all costs to keep your board sober.
Okay, there is a SECOND OPTION, if not driving/sailing drunk: You can't save the world if you are asleep at the wheel.
Point eight: Last year nonprofits of $200K to $8M to $30M blew away in the wind in a matter of months in this country, and their boards all stated they were shocked, stunned, had no idea. At least those were board members who could be found, could be reached. In one notorious case there were only two individuals who would even admit they were a board member of $23M nonprofit service-provider organization. The supposed other eight members of this board were so asleep, that they'd fallen off the bus when it reached the desert and had drfited away when they woke up somewhere else. No one could even remember their names.
DECLARATION: Don't let your friends drive drunk, don't let them fall asleep at the wheel (is it from boredom or meeting that go on too long with nothing of substance:
Point nine: Please observe your board carefully........If the entire party is inebriated, none of them are in a state to make far reaching, thoughtful and integral decisions for the longitudinal health of the group, the committee, the membership and the organization. They readily agree to what seems to be the quickest way to a decision OR continually put off making the decision. And after a bit more drinking in their relief that they are going to get through one more gathering without the place going up in flames, they as a group will excitedly applaud the performer who leaps up with enthusiasm and assurance that all will be well. If this is the case, take away their keys and find a driver, and find new board members.
Conclusion:
The lights will eventually go out on this group. Because they are on a slow course towards death. It dosen't matter that they are good people, a goodly people we might even say. If I could figure out a reason this happens to boards of nonprofits and businesses all over the country and the world, well.....well, I think I have figured out the reasons, but that doesn't help us with the solution.
Boards are composed of human beings who for some reason agree to serving on a board of directors for some organization, one of thousands of nonprofit organizations that exist for whatever purpose you can imagine. There is a mission. There is a purpose. Whether they know and believe and are ambassdors for the mission and purpose is a novel unto itself.
Solution: Honesty demands we don't allow folks to drive drunk or sleep at the wheel. That means ourselves and others.
This requires that today in whatever capacity we have as staff leaders and board members, we clean away all the verbage, all the premier taglines, and avoid discussions around issues that do not pertain to saving the ship. We need to be open to ideas, and understand that the winds of hope are not the same as the winds of delusion.
We need to agree that the buck really does stop with the top staff leader, and the chair or president of the board has the only role that can "call" staff leadership on their actions, so they need to do so when it is necssary.
Boards must remember that they are only interim stewards of an organization's health and morality, that they must leave an organization healthier than when they joined or they have broken faith with all the other stewards who came before them.
Board work is serious, and must be approached with eyes wide open in the 12 hours of serious work we share together each year. Set goals and objectives within the board and call each other out on meeting these g/o's.
And finally, appreciate, in fact relish, those outsiders who ask questions. Because we need to know we can answer them.
