Building a Fit-For-Purpose Association Board in the Turbulent Twenties

As part of the Association Insights series, in Old Town, this webinar discussed the title of this blog post.

The following are my notes from Jeff De Cagna's, Executive Advisor, Foresight First, LLC presentation.

He started with the comment of “we must do something different with our organizations and boards.  Association boards must become more!”

 

He asked a series of questions:

• What will our successors say about us?
• What will the next generation of leaders think of the work you did as a board and organization?
• Why is it critical to build a fit-for-purpose board?

He talked about how this decade is going to get worse and the four forces we face:

• The impact of AI/automation technologies on human beings;
• The worsening climate crisis;
• The surge in human inequality; and
• The rise of ideological extremism.

He discussed what is normal.  And his answer, “nothing is normal.”  He states this as the most acute short-term threat organizations face.  He made the following statement, “boards must adapt to operating in the discontinuous next.”

He went on to talk about boards being risk adverse.  Where are we headed?  Boards need to think towards the future and don’t debate current events.  That’s tough to do!

What are the foundational beliefs of a fit-for-purpose association board?

• Focus on where you are going and not where you have been;
• Think about your successors and stand up for the future;
• Let go of historical expectations;
• Get away from orthodoxy assumptions; and
• Embrace the responsibility of stewardship with other organizations on collaboration.

How can your organizations board become fit-for-purpose?  Being a board vs. becoming a board?  Think long-term and our boards must be more and not just checking the boxes of being a board (i.e. 990 review, annual budget review, etc.).

He suggested asking your board the following three questions:

1. What positive-sum transformation can your board pursue?
2. What sacrifices will your board make to benefit our successors?
3. How will the directors and officers help each other to become a fit-for-purpose board?

He ended with circling back to “what will our successors say about us?” and a quote from Barbara Jordan, “For all of its uncertainty, we cannot flee the future.”

For more information on Jeff De Cagna and his work go to his website HERE.

Great Boards: Finding Them, Engaging Them, Keeping Them

The following post are my notes from a great session led by Claire Louder, Louder NonProfit Strategies, LLC, on the title of this blog.

At this year’s ACCE Summit, Claire started out her session by identifying key attributes of a good board member.  The ones that jumped out for me, include but are not limited to, strategic thinker, visionary, integrity, expertise and financial resources.

She went on to talk about where you can find good board members.  Current volunteers, donors/sponsors, other organizations, and referrals from board members. I’m a fan of identifying skill-sets the board may need; legal, finance, marketing, policy, etc.

Once you have them, support them by holding an orientation – where you can review your program of work, give them support materials and possibly find them a mentor.  Help them build relationships with current board members.

Claire went on to talk about the importance of working effectively with your board chair.  You could have an orientation just for them which is very different than what a full board orientation might look like.  They need to understand their role.  Possibly your past chair could lead this discussion with you as a participant or you could attend a program around the subject. ASAE has conducted their CEO Symposium for over 20 years now.  For more information on that series go HERE.

It is critical that the chair understands his or her role.  They need to understand the difference between the board chair and the CEO of the organization.  Do you have a Memorandum of Understanding on the role of the chair and CEO?  Go HERE for a blog post on that subject and sample document.

And by the way, that document is a great way to set an expectation on how you will communicate, set board agenda’s, etc., in the year they are chair.  Find out what works best for them and stick to the timetable they’ve set.  Respect their time!

She went on to talk about ways to engage them.  Make sure your board meetings are meaningful and timely, stick to the agenda, and use a consent agenda for general reporting items.  Use the other time to discuss any issues the chamber may be facing in the future.

For an example of a board agenda go HERE.  She suggested your strategic plan and business plan should be in your board materials at every meeting.

And her final comments were about recognizing your volunteers.  Thank them and give them credit.  It’s about them, not you!

For resources from Claire’s website go HERE.

Ten Purposeful Provocations for Association Boards in 2021

I recently attended a webinar on the subject of this blog post by Executive Advisor, ForesightFirst, Jeff De Cagna.

Jeff is always thought provoking in his presentations and his insights are worth discussion as we navigate the new order of our organizations in these unprecedented times.

He segmented his presentation into three areas:

Where are we at this moment?

• Turbulent Twenties (T20s)
• No new normal, we have to adapt to the new way of doing business.  The pandemic has changed the way we do business and we must change our thinking moving forward, as we serve our members.
• Uncertainty, volatility and risk is the new “discontinuous next.”
• Finding a balance between the short-term and long-term for our organizations, think the next quarter vs the next decade.

Ten Provocations for Boards

1.  Embrace voluntary service – it is a high privilege to serve on a board, it’s a choice to serve the long-term stewardship of an organization;

2.  Capacity over comfort – continue to look at building capacity in our organizations versus thinking about just being comfortable.  The future will have uncomfortable times for boards and the decisions they will need to make;

3.  Discard orthodox beliefs – everything we think about is grounded in history and that has changed.  We have to base the future on the now and not the past.  Don’t let orthodoxy capture our thinking going forward;

4.  End inequities – build diversity in your boards, move to picking key stakeholders who may or may not be part of your membership (an orthodoxy is that all board members must be members of the organization);

5.  Pursue stewardship with intention – leaving systems in better shape than what they inherited;

6.  Focus on governing – ensure the organization knows what it is trying to accomplish.  Focus on outcomes;

7.  Stand up for the future – ask different questions with an eye towards the future (i.e., again think decades not the next quarter).

8.  Step back from strategy – stay out of the weeds and bring in younger stake-holders;

9.  Reject ideological division – reject the divisions on our boards and in our communities and focus on what is good overall for our organizations; and

10. Sacrifice for their successors – long-term shared interest for the members of the organization for when board members are long gone.

What are we going to do differently this year?

• Don’t wait to act on the new way of thinking in these turbulent times on your boards and organizations.
• Reinvent the work of your boards.  What can we do differently?  Your boards need to ask the question, where are we going, not where are we or where we’ve been?
• Build a high-performance board to thrive in the turbulent T20s.

He ended his presentation with his favorite quote from Barbara Jordan – “For all of its uncertainty, we cannot flee the future.”

For resources on Jeff and his work go HERE.

Governance: Balanced Boards

There are a lot of books and articles on the subject of this blog title and I’d like to highlight the ideas put forth by Glenn Tecker at Tecker International LLC, in a slide deck he recently shared with the association community.

He starts out by talking about the 3 key attributes you should look for when identifying potential new board members.

 

Skill set – marketing, lobbying, legal, finance, fundraising, etc.?

 

Diversity – this would include but not limited to generations, geographic, industry sector, gender, ethnic, etc.?

 

Experience – what experience do they have in the community, working on a board and knowing the work of the chamber?

 

The slide deck included a list of the “Six Key Attributes of Board Members.”  This list below is verbatim from his slide deck (Copyright 2020 Tecker International LLC).

• The ability to think strategically and analytically and to effectively communicate thoughts and the reasons for them.

• Possession of earned respect of other key stakeholder group members.

• The ability to work well with others as a member of a collaborative group with group decision-making authority and an understanding of the fiduciary duties of loyalty, care, and obedience.

• A demonstrated understanding of the differences between “oversight” and “supervision.”

• An earned reputation for emotional maturity, personal integrity, and honesty.

• A demonstrated familiarity with the body of knowledge related to both the process for which the group is responsible as well as the substantive content of the subject area within which decisions are choices will have to be made.

I wrote about the Duty of Care, Duty of Loyalty and Duty of Obedience of board members in a previous blog post that can be found HERE.

 

I’ve also talked about creating job descriptions for potential board members in previous blog posts.  Have you thought about creating a set of interview questions to ask your prospective new board members?  This is where you may want to go back to the skill set and attributes comments above for specific examples.

 

Remember, these new board members will be with the organization for the next six years, if you’re like most chambers who have two year terms renewable for three terms, and picking the right ones is key to your and your organizations success!

For more resources on board governance go HERE.

Board Relations and Leadership

I recently attended a session on the title of this blog presented by Steven Worth with Worth Consulting.

He started off by asking the question, do we have a problem?

He referenced a Stanford study that 69% of the people surveyed identified a challenge over the past 10 years mainly in: fundraising; financial stability; the executive director leaves unexpectedly; and attracting new board members.

He broke the session down into four areas and I took away the following comments or best practices in each of the areas discussed.

Governance

Remember the duties of board members:

• Duty of Care;
• Duty of Loyalty; and
• Duty of Obedience.

For an entire blog post on the subject matter go HERE.  And don’t forget the fiduciary responsibility when it comes to your finances.

Board Leadership Development Needs

Boards can be representative vs strategic.  While both can be productive it’s key to get the right board members involved in your organization.

There are a number of challenges that can be counterproductive which include, a board member pushing their own agenda, not knowledgable, the naysayer, etc.

It's critical that you continue to asses your current board for skill sets and position your organization to elect new board members where you may be lacking (i.e. knowledge in finance, marketing, education, leadership).

Membership and Financial Challenges

We are membership organizations.  Stay focused on your mission!

Markets change and the board needs to stay focused on that market otherwise the board and members will become obsolete if they don’t stay in tune on their market sector.

Don’t become a social party for your members, stay focused on the mission and serve the market whichever direction it goes.

Suggestions on how to stay focused:

Through surveys, discover the facts (quantitative vs qualitative) and do some benchmarking.  Constantly re-examine your strategy (annual strategic planning session) and always be recruiting new and keep getting new members, the bell curve 25-55 is the main working age and should be represented in your membership numbers.

Confusion Over the Board's Role

Create a job description for prospective board members so they know what they are getting into and what the expectation is if selected.  For a sample job description go HERE.

Do you continue to ask your board members on how they're doing and if they understand their role on the board?

Are you promoting your board members?  Recognition is very important in what you give back to board members for their service.

Have you created a scorecard matrix that has the board self evaluate their performance and which also identifies their skill set.  This is a simple exercise that will give you the information you need to build a strong board.

In the last part of the session we discussed how finding friends or partners with other organizations, think your chamber and other entities within the community to:

• Share resources
• Expand your network
• Do well by doing good
• Develop new ways of working
• Gain additional credibility

Final quote on leaders – they inspire others to do more than they thought they ever could do.

Something to think about!