Following up on my recent post about how boards fail, here are more thoughts on how boards can fall short of their responsibilities. Again, let me have your thoughts on these…
- Allowing personal agendas to trump focusing solely on the clients being served
- Not creating opportunities to receive feedback to improve organizations impact, performance, and effectiveness
- Using no metrics to evaluate how the organization is doing, how its clients are being served, what impact the organization is having on those it seeks to help.
- Stifling healthy change in Board composition by allowing directors to remain too long
- Inhibiting frank and honest discussion at board and committee meetings by favoring comity over straight talk.
- Not making the tough calls…
- Having no professional development plan for key staff and leaders
- Taking volunteers’ commitment and performance for granted
- Becoming enamored with growth of the size of your organization without consideration for effectiveness
- Losing focus in its core work by permitting “mission creep” to weaken the organizations effectiveness and waste resources.
- Settling for the status quo
- Eliminating creative tension
- Losing the sense of joy that service brings
If you recognize any…or several…of these on boards you sit, call me and let’s discuss…
All excellent points, ones about which every board member should think regularly.
If the Board isn’t physically involved in some part of the program or outreach efforts they have no basis to determine if the expenses and efforts are efficient or effective. The difference from a business governance and a non-profit governance is that many times the “products” are not tangible and the leger books don’t tell the whole story.
Hi, Tom. I was glad to hear from you through Linked In. Your thoughts are quite interesting and I think accurate. We are having a Board retreat next week. Your thoughts are a good preparation for me, since it’s on Board development. Mary Ellen