Assessment of governance starts with an agreed upon set of correlates of effectiveness. After reviewing a good deal of research on the subject, Bendel Services has come up with the following set:

• Mission Orientation and Client Service
• Accountability Measures and Structures
• Planning and Direction
• Governance Structure
• Board-Staff Relationships

Let’s take a brief look at each of these.

Mission Orientation and Client Service:  Your organization was set up for some purpose – or it would not exist in the first place. Sound obvious?  Of course, it does.  Nevertheless, it is a fact of board life that the longer the organization exists, the more likely it is that the board will drift away from its founding mission and beliefs as the organization begins to deal with what is often called “the tyranny of the present” and begins to concentrate on emerging issues, tasks and challenges that may, in fact, have little to do with its primary purpose.  One of the reasons for a regular governance review is to ensure that this is not the case.  It is just another way of steering the ship in the direction in which it was intended to go.  In other words, the primary question is:  How are we doing in meeting our own mandate and serving the needs of our clients? At all times, this question should be in the minds of board members.

Accountability Measures and Structures:  Closely related to the above, is the notion of accountability.  The organization was put into place for some reason, some need.  In addition, it may be funded through donations, government measures, membership fees, etc.  Whatever the source of the funds and the loci of the needs, the board needs to hold itself accountable for the work that it does, the resources it deploys (staff, funds, and others) not just from a fiduciary point of view but from an ethical and moral perspective.  In other words:  What measures are in place that will allow a board to present itself for scrutiny under the law, its own terms of reference and in the face of the people it is designed to serve?

Planning and Direction:  In Leadership Behavior Leonard Sayles talks about “direction” as being one of the three main characteristics for effective individual leadership. This quality and its relationship to planning which is one of the outcomes of leadership is the third correlate.  Through its strategic planning and its regular decision-making, a board should be able to direct an organization at the upper levels of planning, setting the stage for the development of work plans for the staff and thus ensuring that the organization’s chief executive officer implements fully the stated directions it turns over to staff.  As a caveat, however, the board must always be vigilant in its role of setting direction through policy and planning that it does not invade the operationalizing of its decisions which is the jurisdiction of the staff.  In other words, it must consciously avoid the dreaded board tendency to micro-manage, a self-defeating practice that can cause the board to drift away from its primary mission and usurp the duties of the staff. The key questions then are as follows:

Have we directed staff through our decision-making and policies to support the overall mission of the organization?  Have we respected the role of the staff in carrying out those decisions?

Governance Structure:  In large organizations there is a tendency to expand the governance structure through setting up standing board sub-committees to oversee certain aspects of the organization such as finance, facilities, human resources etc.  It may be that, given the size of an organization, such committees are necessary to assist the board by doing a good deal of the “spade work” before a matter goes to the board for a decision.

In the beginning, many of these sub-committees have been set up to relieve the board of its burden and to save time.  However, experience has shown that these committees take on a life of their own and start to require extra work from staff. The result is that such a structure becomes costly in terms of staff time and resources.  A staff begins to serve several governance masters at the same time – and the workload on staff becomes overly burdensome.

Carver and others question the need for sub-committees based on the above concern.  Recently we have seen boards dissolving their sub-committee structures to increase efficiencies.  To a large extent, the choice depends on the history of the board, the capacities of its staff and the reasonableness of adding or eliminating this extra layer of governance.  In the end, the answer to the structure conundrum will be encapsulated in this question:  What is the most effective and efficient way of managing, through structure, the decision-making responsibilities of the board?  It may be that simplicity in organizational structure is the answer.  Whatever the outcome, the board needs to assess constantly its structures in terms of both qualities.

Board-Staff Relationships:  Finally, we come to that most important dimension of all – the human dimension. The board makes the decisions and oversees the development of policy.  The staff implements those decisions. I t goes without saying that this is the locus that will determine the degree to which the board and staff can act in harmony.  It is the line between these two equally important functions that will ultimately determine boar-staff relationship simply because it “defines the territory”.  If board and staff understand fully the roles of each and work consistently in maintaining that balance, it is entirely likely that a productive relationship will be forged between these key groups.

Supported by candor and honesty, committed to on-going communication and publicly displayed respect and cooperation, the board and staff can spend their time and efforts on meeting the client needs and avoiding the political machinations that often characterize organizational dysfunction.  The last question, then, is:  Do we as an organization understand and abide by the need for separation between governance and management and are we willing to work hard at achieving a balance in the interest the clients we serve and mandate under which that service is carried out?

Next Week:  How do we gather information on our performance against these five correlated?

Dr. Dan