4. Don’t forget board capacity
The Board should never forget its own governing capacity, something that in the bustle of ‘busyness’ is too often ignored.
Governing capacity is something that must be nurtured to ensure continuous board growth through self-monitoring, development of board discipline, professional development as a collective activity, intentional training of board skills, and the occasional intensive effort or “deep dive” to ensure optimal board capacity for the future.
a. Self-monitoring and self-assessment
Just as we assure our CEO is accountable for whether or how well the organization has followed board policy for ends and executive limitations, we also determine on behalf of our community of owners the extent to which the board itself is following board means policies.
Upon launch we began a habit of evaluating every meeting, regularly reminding ourselves of our commitment to agree-on protocols. Our last agenda item, before announcements, is meeting assessment, which takes only one or two minutes to self-assess board performance during the meeting. We rotate this responsibility among board members, one at a time using an evaluation checklist to critique how the meeting went.
Developing this routine at every meeting supplements other self-assessments such as annual monitoring of each of our board means policies and an annual self-evaluation.
Early on in our experience, after we had our routines established, I began to think that in conducting self-assessment we were just going through the motions. Indeed, another PG board that we knew treated self-monitoring as an item to be “checked off” for the year by combining all their GP policies for monitoring in a single agenda item discussion.
Now I think that through a routine of self-monitoring distributed in meeting agendas throughout the year, we have developed the disciplined habit of self-monitoring that strengthens our board, regularly correcting small problems as they occur and continuously shaping future behavior.
b. Board member responsibility for board discipline
In a March 2000 article written for The School Administrator magazine, Carver observed that “Boards are the least disciplined, least rational, and most disordered element in any school system.” With this warning, he goes on to encourage board self-discipline, since the board retains ultimate power and authority in a school district.
For our board, the responsibility of individual board members to enforce agreed-on protocols was readily accepted in theory, but acting on that commitment has not always been smooth. At first we relied on the board chair to fulfill an enforcement role that is sometimes called the “Carver Cop,” but then we realized that any board member could and should remind colleagues of their commitments, so our board culture changed – now we are now more ready to shoulder this burden. Yet occasional bickering and personal animosity keeps us aware that this is a not-quite-there-yet task.
c. Professional development is for ‘the board’
We used to think of board PD as an individual activity, something primarily for our newest board members, and (for more experienced members) as a self-selected activity, but over time we have recognized the need for continuous learning as a group activity to help all of us, as a collaborative body, to make good decisions about ENDS and MEANS and monitor performance to assure accountability.
d. Training
We used to think that board professional development was a matter of education – reading and understanding boardsmanship and governance concepts. Again, this kind of thinking reflected a focus on each of us as an individual.
Over time we realized the value of training for “the board” as a collective discipline, developing, rehearsing, and repeating behavior and skills until action-response is systematic and not subject to random impulses.
For example, using The Board Member’s Playbook by Miriam Carver and Bill Charney, we have practiced a disciplined “whole board” response to a number of predictable scenarios. Training is not a dirty word.
e. Conduct an occasional “deep dive” with policy governance principles
I used to think that by embedding PG principles into our policies and revisiting policies through periodic monitoring, we assure our alignment with those principles.
Now I think that occasionally conducting a separate in-depth review or “deep dive” into the 10 principles, intentionally inventorying relevant artifacts and board behaviors, helps us to take stock and renew our model consistency in a more intentional way. Our board did this in 2015. We went through a similar review while preparing for this presentation. We should consider conducting a “deep dive” every 3-5 years, which happens to be the average tenure of a board member.
5. Trust the process
There is a saying that is appropriate for a board that governs through coherent principles. It encourages us, once we have a good system in place, to “trust the process.”
a. Wise habits
I used to think that routines and habits reflect the kind of foolish consistency that Ralph Waldo Emerson considered the hobgoblin of little minds. I’m not sure, however, whether Emerson distinguished consistency that is foolish from that which is wise.
Now I think that intentional habits, carefully developed, reflect the strength of a disciplined mind. As policy governance boards we have an opportunity to develop a wise consistency, with board habits that reinforce our values. Some examples:
Monitoring policy governing executive performance or board performance at nearly every meeting, we develop the disciplined habit of reviewing our values, checking to see that they are honored, and refreshing our commitment to them.
Self-assessing board practice at the end of every meeting is the kind of wise habit that employs minor corrections to keep the board pointed in the right direction. We prevent little discrepancies from becoming major problems.
b. CEO Interpretation
I used to think that after conducting 16 monitoring cycles during the period from 2003 to 2019, we had a process that was in full adherence to the PG model. And now I think we have a process that needs periodic review and adjustment if necessary. In 2019-2020 we took a fresh look at our monitoring reports and found we did not fully understand CEO interpretation.
The improvement we instituted was to be more explicit about our expectation for a separate interpretation statement in the CEO’s monitoring report.
CEO monitoring reports now include an interpretation statement that enables the board to determine its reasonableness before judging progress toward Ends, or compliance with limits.
c. Monitoring and board development
A lesson we have learned over the years: Our monitoring cycle is not only an instrument of accountability, it also serves as an agent of change, improving board practice even while targeting organizational performance. Rigorously monitoring, then requiring or making small, seemingly insignificant tweaks in response to monitoring emphasizes the fact that our model is not engraved in stone, and reinforces the value of continuously “becoming a better board.”
NEXT: Lessons 6 (Put in the work); 7 (Allow enough time); and 8 (Grow institutional memory)
BACK: To Lessons 1 (Be wary of assumptions); 2 (Change our mindset); and 3 (It’s all or nothing)