by Susan Detwiler | Dec 10, 2012 | governance, management, mission, nonprofit, Uncategorized
I’ve been living in a bubble. I attended a seminar by an attorney who works with nonprofits, talking to other attorneys about the world of nonprofits.
Her talk was a shocking reminder of just how widespread misconceptions about board service are. I’m becoming used to standing on a soap box and expounding with great assurance about the relationships between boards and executives. But every time I hear a professional presenting outdated ideas about board service, I am still shocked.
What she did was no different from so many other professionals, who know their fields very well, but are less informed about trends in governance. In this case, she launched immediately into the legal duties of care, loyalty and obedience, without setting the stage of what the whole point of a board is. She declared that board retreats could be done maybe every two years, or three if that’s when the full board has turned over, and used the word boring to describe board meetings. She referenced the never-changing agenda of “minutes, financial report, directors report, old business, new business,” and said that sometimes there just isn’t anything going on that’s important for the board to talk about.
There is so much I’ve learned from these professionals. An attorney describing the validity of term limits in ways that other attorneys can understand them; the legal ins-and-outs of confidentiality. But I cringe at the depiction of board service that they’ve conveyed. No one in their right mind would want to be on a board, if they thought that board service was as they describe.
So I have a new challenge. Apparently, I’ve been living in a bubble, where I communicate regularly with like-minded individuals. We see board service as a noble investment in our communities while being fully engaged with others who also see value in the mission, ensuring that nonprofit organizations have the resources with which to continue their work.
The challenge is, how do I—how do WE—get the word out to other professionals, so instead of undermining our work, they are also missionaries for the role of boards and board service?
And, since I’m living in a bubble, what misconceptions do I have, that I need to be disabused of, so I can reciprocate in my work, and provide an accurate picture of their field?
Any ideas?
by Susan Detwiler | Jul 8, 2012 | management, nonprofit, Uncategorized
In 1988, Bobby McFerrin released a song that drove me absolutely nuts. “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.†Just ask my husband. I cringed whenever I heard it. The whole idea that you should never worry, and that just being told to be happy would work was just crazy to me.
Frankly, I still feel that way. No, I don’t cringe when I hear the song, but the philosophy that we should never worry just doesn’t work for me.
Stress isn’t your enemy! Stress can be good! It’s how we grow!
Stressing about stress is your enemy. Stressing without release is your enemy. But stress isn’t bad in and of itself. In fact, in orthopedics, there’s something called Wolf’s Law – bone that is subjected to some stress, grows stronger in the area of stress. The same thing with muscles. That’s why we’re told to do cardiovascular exercise – so our heart muscle grows stronger.
It follows through into our work lives. If we’re constantly working in our comfort zones, then we don’t grow. But working outside of our comfort zones is stressful.
So what?
You didn’t learn to ride a bike by not taking terrifying first peddles and falling down a few times.
When it comes to our nonprofit work, we have to face the fact that working outside our comfort zone is the only way we’ll grow beyond what we’re already doing. It may be stressful, but as long as we periodically take some time off to relax and look at what we’ve done, then the stress is good.
If you want to work explore how a coach or mentor can help you or your staff embrace the stress – and work with it instead of against it – let me know! I’m happy to talk about it and see if there are ways that you can put stress to work for you.
by Susan Detwiler | May 8, 2012 | governance, management, mission, nonprofit, philanthropy
“Do you really need a Board or does having one just lead to more chaos…?â€
A few months back, this loaded question was asked of the Nonprofit Professionals Group on LinkedIn, and a robust discussion followed.
My favorite answer, though, came from colleague John McClusky.
“…we, the public, “entrust” the “trustees,” the predominantly volunteer body named “the “board,” to serve as our agent to ensure that the NPO actually pursues the socially beneficial purpose (mission) it claims to fulfill and acts in a fundamentally responsible way with the charitable donations and tax exemptions we grant it…â€
In other words, the Board of Directors is entrusted with the responsibility to make sure that the mission is fulfilled.
For years, I have been telling boards that their job is to ensure that the mission of the organization can be fulfilled now, and in the future. It lays the groundwork for the board’s role in ensuring that the resources necessary for this fulfillment – financial, intellectual, capital, social, vision – are available to the organization.
But I’d never really looked at the other side of the role. When we serve on boards, we are not only serving our own nonprofit organization, we are also serving society. We, the Directors and Trustees, are the eyes and ears of society, are responsible for making sure that the dollars which society entrusts to us are used wisely and to fulfill the intent which we proclaim. Our donors give us their wealth; our government is giving up tax dollars to us.
As directors and trustees, we serve our nonprofit. But we are also trustees of society, and as such, responsible for upholding our end of the bargain.
Being on a board is an awesome responsibility. Let me know if you’d like to talk about instilling this vision of a board’s role throughout your work.
by Susan Detwiler | Apr 23, 2012 | Uncategorized
Better be nasty first, before someone else is nasty to you.
Ever notice how that seems to be the attitude of so many people? It’s an attitude that exudes arrogance, because it asks the world to earn respect, instead of automatically endowing each person with dignity.
On the other hand, my mother, of blessed memory, always treated people with respect until they lost it, and more often than not, they lived up to her expectations. Never one to be in the spotlight, she earned no honors or awards but she had a smile and a welcome for each new person. 29 years ago, the throng at her funeral testified to just how many people she had touched with this attitude.
In the nonprofit world, you are far more likely to encounter people like my mother than the nasty folks of the first paragraph. But if that’s the case, why is there acrimony when board members, volunteers and staff professionals disagree? If the nonprofit world is filled with people who have the best interests of their organizations at heart, why is it sometimes hard to maintain a cordial discourse?
Maybe, although we profess that each party has good intentions, our actions belie that belief.
Let’s take, for example, a house of worship.
The people on the board of trustees, or vestry, or similar body, are volunteering their time to make this house of worship a healthy, vibrant place for all people who wish to participate. But sometimes, when there is a disagreement on the board, personalities are brought into the discussion, old grudges are revived and arguments become heated. Nastiness occasionally ensues. Trustees storm out. Rumors are spread. Email diatribes fly.
Yet each party to the disagreement probably began by arguing from a position of faith, and love of the organization; each wants the church, mosque, or synagogue to be the best it can be. How much more cordial the discussion would be if each party stepped back, acknowledged that they all want the organization to succeed, and then acted as if they truly believed it.
The disagreement is not who loves the congregation more – it’s about how best to improve it.  The next time a disagreement starts – and there WILL be disagreements – step back and reinforce this. Elevate the conversation. Place the issue at hand in front of the board, and remind all the parties to presume that each comes to the table in good faith.
I am not a Pollyanna. I will not deny that there are people who are regularly nasty or are just plain bad guys. But you can’t convince me that the majority of the world would not want to see it improve.
Presume good will.
If you’d like to find out more about how to elevate the conversation in board meetings, get in touch with me at sdetwiler@detwiler.com. Let’s see if there are techniques for making the meetings more productive, by focusing on why you’re all there in the first place…because you ALL want to achieve your mission.
by Susan Detwiler | Mar 20, 2012 | governance, management, nonprofit, Uncategorized
Niccolo Machiavelli was right, when he said. There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.
Wow. He sure nailed it on the head. If you’ve ever come into an organization and tried to change its course, you know just how right he was. Change is hard, change is risky, and change is resisted.
And even when people claim to be willing to change, almost to a person, they will tell you that their peers will resist it.
In February, Julia Kirby wrote an analysis of the downfall of a change agent. As I read her blog on Harvard Business Review, most of her analysis boils down to arrogance. Coming in as a white knight that will rescue a situation, creating an ‘us’ vs ‘them’ mentality, presuming that everyone agrees that change is necessary – any one of these will create resentment in an organization. Doing all of them is sure to make change even harder.
An organization is made of people who have invested time and their lives in building something good. To be told that it has to change implies that they have wasted their time, or that what they have built is not good.
Instead, engaging every level in the organization in making the already good even better creates a team more willing to work on change. And change is important, to keep up with society, and to ensure that you’re delivering your mission in the best way possible.
It’s not a panacea – change IS hard – but a willing attitude goes a long way toward making those difficult transitions easier to take. Instead of imposing change, inspire the team to aspire to greatness. Change will follow.
What she did was no different from so many other professionals, who know their fields very well, but are less informed about trends in governance. In this case, she launched immediately into the legal duties of care, loyalty and obedience, without setting the stage of what the whole point of a board is. She declared that board retreats could be done maybe every two years, or three if that’s when the full board has turned over, and used the word boring to describe board meetings. She referenced the never-changing agenda of “minutes, financial report, directors report, old business, new business,” and said that sometimes there just isn’t anything going on that’s important for the board to talk about.
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