January 15, 2010 What if there were no Boards?
Ok, I’ll bite – what if we didn’t have boards (per Maddie Grant’s comments)? Is there a better way of doing things to lead our organizations into the future and to make them better – I’m sure there is, there is always a better mouse trap around the bend. But any leadership model will be based on some type of board, committee, group leading the way – otherwise, it would be a dictatorship, and that won’t fly for long with the membership.
Instead of thinking of ways to do without boards, why don’t we focus on what makes better boards? Many boards are too large to make informed decisions, many boards try to do the work themselves instead of using a committee to do the work and report back to the board for their ultimate decision (which in turn helps develop new leaders), many boards do not have an executive committee that can make quick decisions when getting the board together is impracticable, many boards are not representative of the membership, which often is because the nomination process takes place within the board and is not a function that includes other members, and the list goes on and on.
So do we do without boards? I guess we could, but there would be some other model that would probably work in a similar manner.
So my take on this is to focus on the nurturing of new leaders, the nomination process, preparation for service, accountability of that service, yes they need to read the agendas and come to the meetings ready to participate (and don’t get me started on how the agendas should be relevant!), proper staff support so that decisions made can be carried out – but also the flip side where there should not just be a laundry list of to-do items that come out of the board meeting, but movement toward fulfilling the association’s mission and goals that fit within the available resources.
Of course, then there are other questions that arise – why are we doing the same thing the same way? Let’s take advantage of the new tools, look at new membership models. After the bottom line is the members, without members there will not be an association or a board – but that is another post for another day 
Just my voice.
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Leslie White
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Agreed that we need boards but we need a new model. As seen in both the corporate and not-for-profit worlds, boards have a hard time fulfilling their legal and moral duties. Why is it so hard for board members to understand their duties and jobs? Despite lots of literature and board consultants most boards and organizations still don’t get it. I’m not smarter enough to come up with the new model but I can call for others to develop it. There must be a model that works intuitively. What do you think?
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