If only I received a dollar every time I have heard this moan coming from the lips of an executive director…!I can easily understand an executive’s frustration when the board in question assumes its role is to “help” management get its work done.  Board-level marketing committees, special events committees, fund raising committees, etc. sound like wonderful ideas but all too frequently gum up the ability of staff to move quickly and creatively (“Let’s run the idea past the committee. Their next meeting is in three weeks.”) or add an unnecessary layer of effort to engage an uninspired committee. Often these efforts far outweigh the amount of help received.

Just last week, I was talking with an exhausted young executive director, weary of the continual effort of motivating committee members, attending to the logistical needs of the group and chafing at their displeasure with an idea she felt was reasonable and full of potential for the organization. So I described a different role for the board to her. One focused squarely on the job products necessary to govern effectively*. Then I described a scenario in which she is free to draw on whatever volunteer resources she needs to get her work done. Maybe it is a cracker-jack marketing expert who only has the time and interest in working on one time-limited project. Maybe it is a Girl Scout troop interested in a service project – no strings attached. Whenever the need emerged, she or the staff person responsible could bring volunteers to the table in whatever fashion the person felt most beneficial. The key is that staff calls the shots and doesn’t have to work “through” the board’s standing committee. The young executive lit up when she started imagining all the possibilities this approach offered.

Governing an organization is not synonymous with helping management complete its work. Governing is speaking and working on behalf of the legal and moral owners of an organization. Two completely different functions! Plenty of critical governance work has been put on the board’s back burner in favor of the time consuming activities tied to management functions. This obscures the staff’s ability to creatively secure their own support on their own terms.

It is time boards refocus and give the staff the freedom to set their own course. 

*The governing duties of the board are to 1) listen to owner desires for the organization, 2) set governing policies that define results and limit means and 3) monitoring that the organization complied with those policies.