Here’s a simple way to find out. In a middle of a board meeting, look at the people around the table and ask yourself: Does the quality of this discussion match the quality of people?
Granted, “quality” is fairly subjective. Yet, it is pretty easy to tell if you have a group of individuals who have a history of success in life and are deeply engaged in family, work, and community service, but for some reason cannot elevate the conversation in the board room beyond trivial issues that are not core to the strengthening the performance of the organization. If this is the situation, your board members have been neutered. They are unclear about why they are getting together with people they hardly know, unclear about what their role and purpose is, and unclear, ultimately, about why they should be engaged.
Worse yet, the nonprofit field has tacitly accepted this “neutered” role for boards. Oh yes, we want effective boards, but we have lowered the bar. We have accepted that the right place for boards is to make decisions over budgets they don’t truly understand, to hire professionals to lead organizations they truly don’t understand, and to approve strategy and actions to create results that they truly don’t understand.
Do we really believe that the next generation of board leaders will accept this? All signs point to Millennials’ commitment to causes is not just hands on, it is hands deep. What this generation teaches us is that for boards to avoid being neutered and to become relevant and meaningful we need to allow them to focus on and shape what truly matters — creating value for the communities they serve.
Here are a few questions for boards to consider:
1. What would happen if we changed the focus of board leadership away from governance and oversight to efficiently and effectively creating value?
2. How can we build an environment within the board meeting where each member is able to listen for the purpose of the organization and share their creativity, skills, and expertise to address the most important issues?
3. How can we grow the board’s sense of accountability to all stakeholders through our focus on developing innovative ideas to improve performance?
Boards that have answered these questions, have avoided being neutered. They see their purpose as central to the cause, they have moved beyond passive oversight and have embraced an active role of seeking out opportunities and innovations to improve the creation of value.