In my role as CEO of a number of nonprofit and for profit organisations, Chair of a few Boards, and consulting work with thousands of Boards and CEOs over the past 20 years, I have seen a very common theme emerge… Most Directors, and many Chairs, do not know how to deal with Board conversations that go off the rails.
Have you ever been part of these situations?
A Director insists on bringing their pet issues or projects up... constantly
A Director has a secret agenda eg positioning for political gain, or wants to be seen as representing their specific constituency
Individuals consistently express overt or covert anger or frustration at not getting their way
There is general confusion over what an issue is, and what plans might be possible to deal with it.
Your Vision/Purpose (we will just call this a Vision statement in this article) is one of the key tools that can bring these Board interactions and conversations back on track again. Based on decades of experience in bringing these conversations and discussions back into the realm of possibility and creating the future as a focus, here are some key strategies that will assist.
1. The role of questions
The key role of a question is to unlock the wisdom of the people contributing to the discussion, including yourself. This wisdom is often not articulated well, or is hidden amongst a lot of distracting comments or intractable points of view. A question starts with you being the energy of curiosity, with the intent to open up possibilities that had never been considered, and to reframe points of view. A question should never be about seeking the answer, but rather to function from the space of “what if….?”
Your Vision statement provides you with a glimpse of what the future could be, so it makes sense to use your vision to keep reminding people you are there to create the future. The best way to do this is to continually use your Vision statement to help inform the sort of questions that you will ask.
2. Using the Key Elements in your Vision statement
Every vision statement will have 2, maybe 3, sometimes 4 key elements. Use these key elements to help unlock conversations and inform decision making.
For example, Landcare Australia has the vision “All Australians actively caring for the land and water that sustain us”. There are 3 key elements in this Vision: 1. All Australians… 2. Actively caring… 3. Land and water that sustain us.
So the key questions will revolve around these three elements.
What do we mean by all Australians? If we can’t access all Australians, then who can? How do we know that we are reaching all Australians? And so on…
What does actively caring look like? Actively caring from whose perspective? How will we measure actively caring? And so on…
What does land and water that sustains us mean? From whose perspective? How do we measure the sustaining component? And so on…
These questions can be asked of every project and initiative, and can inform all Board and executive decisions.
3. What to do when operational micromanagement usurps strategic oversight
Micromanagement can get Board conversations totally off-track, with sometimes dire results. I define micromanagement as “When there is an operational focus with no strategic oversight”. The Board sometimes needs to micromanage a particular issue, but should always have a strategic oversight of what the bigger picture is when dealing with that issue. A good Board will then move out of the micromanaging phase (quickly) back into the strategic oversight focus. Your Vision statement can again provide guidance on how to deal with micromanaging that is not appropriate. Questions such as: “How will this information inform our discussions around the vision elements?” can focus people back again on the key strategic issues. Other questions such as “What is the bigger strategic issue here that we need to be aware of?” can keep people focused strategically rather than on pet peeves or more familiar operational questions that the Director may be using in their day job.
4. How to help the chair
Act as if you were the Chair. Be aware of what a good Chair should do, and be this yourself. Invite other comments from those that have not shared their views. Refocus the conversation back to the strategic issues. Summarise conversations and use the Vision statement as a way of focusing your thoughts and summaries. Help others to reframe their comments into either questions, or with a greater strategic focus. Call out bad behaviour. Act as if you were the Chair also means that you know when to speak up and when to keep quiet. And overarching all this is the vision of the future you want created that is articulated by your Vision statement.
Please, comment on your experiences, write in to me, tell me what has worked, what hasn’t worked, what you have done to make your Board even more strategically impactful. I may even write a follow up article outlining what you have told me, so others may benefit.