Board Meeting Apathy
In recent months I have observed a variety of board meetings and I walked away from most of them wondering why groups of people with a passion for the organization spend so much time accomplishing so little. Human resources are a precious commodity yet we can be guilty of treating them carelessly. During many of these board meetings there was reference to the need for environmental stewardship but little attention to utilizing the knowledge and wisdom of people who have been chosen to lead the organization.
Yes, board members, as a group, are supposed to lead the organization. It is the board as a whole who is liable if the organization acts illegally or unethically. It is the board who hires the senior staff person who in turn is in charge of operations. The concept of boards of directors or trustees was started so that the highest level decisions in an organization would be made by a group, not by an individual. This is an extension of the maxim “two heads are better than one”.
However, at many board meetings the vast majority of agenda items are brought to the table by the CEO or the Executive Director. It is common place for the senior staff person (CEO or ED) to make a recommendation to the board, that is, for one person to indicate a preferred decision to the group that is her boss. There is merit in an employee making a recommendation to his boss, who can then give a quick nod of approval or redirect the developing staff member. However, when the boss is a group the dynamics need to be different. What tends to happen when the senior staff person make a recommendation to the board is that all members of the board, without any questions or discussion, give a quick vote of approval. Six, say, board members are giving their okay to the CEO’s or ED’s recommendation. I suggest that in the majority of such situations, the six people have not explored the issue at hand. They trust the CEO or ED, and at a quick glance the recommendation looks fine, so they quickly rubber-stamp the senior staff decision and move on. To experience the benefits of group decision-making it is important that everyone who has been selected to be part of the group express his perspective. Then all group members can consider the implications of the decision at hand and make a better decision than any individual could have made alone. There is so much diversity of skills and insights among people. Engaging this diversity greatly increases the quality of a decision, but simply asking several people to express their independent conclusion is only checking what the majority of people would individually decide.
I recently observed one board meeting with over 35 agenda items. Most of them ran like this: motion to approve, seconder, unanimous vote in favor. On three of the agenda items one of the board members expressed his perspective, indicating that the staff recommendation wasn’t necessarily ideal. Nobody else commented so the chair called the vote which was unanimously in favor. When there is no culture of discussion, even the board members who are brave enough to question a staff recommendation tend to comply with the majority. The board members are not effectively engaging their brain power, but rather are simply ratifying the senior staff person’s thinking. In such organizations is it the senior staff person or the board who is really leading the organization?
