Skip to main content

Time to Get to Work

NEVER MIND THAT IT'S THE FIRST MONDAY OF THE NEW YEAR and you're still struggling with those resolutions.  When you get to your desk this morning, will you really make any changes to how you approach your work?  The fact is that you don't have to make any big changes.  After all, big change is most often made up of the accumulation of lots of small changes, sideways glances and out-of-the blue inspirations.

Thanks to the good thinking of others, today I've got a manageable handful of small, sideways and out-of-the blue for you:

The "Ten New Year's Resolutions for Boards" from Barry Bader's Great Boards Blog offers advice that you can put into action almost immediately.  How's this:  make a list of the board members who are your board's future chairpersons and figure out ways to get them lined up for leadership (OK, that last part is my advice).  Barry's advice is if you can't identify anyone on your current board who's willing/able to become the board's leader, then you've got to put your heads together and develop it from within or recruit for it.  If you've one or two folks, what can you do right now to develop them further?  Should they be part of the executive committee (if they're not already)?  Should they be included in conversations with the current board president?  After you've made your list and answered these questions, call or email your nominating/board development committee chairperson and suggest a meeting.  Do this before the end of January.

Another great suggestion from Bader's list is to rethink what you give your board members as prep material before a board meeting.  Are they really getting material that will help them be better critical thinkers and decision-makers about the organization?  It seems like it's feast for famine for most boards -- either they're inundated with reports or they don't get anything (even an agenda).  If you're responsible for helping your board understand the organization's issues and their responsibilities, take a couple of hours this week to find out what your board members need and want for prep material (call a few of them for a quick convo).  Then make a plan to deliver on that before the next board meeting.

Over at Gail Perry's blog, Fired-Up Fundraising, you'll find her resolutions for board members.  As far as I'm concerned, her set of ten resolutions amounts to the basic job description for all modern board members.  Two of her ten are "get more engaged" with the work of the organization (actually easier done than thought) and "have a bias toward action".  Add a discussion around Perry's list to your next board meeting agenda.

Barry Hessenius gives us a baker's dozen of resolutions at Barry's Blog.  Among them are these:  the two watchwords for 2011 (and beyond) are Austerity and Authenticity; and put someone on your board who's under the age of 30 -- as Barry says, "Just do it already."  You might review your strategic plan with austerity and authenticity as the filters.  Would you make any changes to your plan because of them?  As for the under 30 board member, we'll you've already got your call into your nominating/board development chairperson.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Back in the Saddle

MY LAST POST WAS NOVEMBER 2012, A LIGHT YEAR AWAY it seems, that marked the beginning of a long push toward completing a manuscript on history museum leadership with my co-author, Joan Baldwin.  We finally submitted 350+ pages to our editor at Rowman & Littlefield this week.  If all goes well, we expect the book to be available in early 2014.  It's taken us two years to get to this point, so six more months or so of revision and production don't seem too long to wait until we can hold the final product in our hands (and you can, too!). The project put a lot of things on hold, including this blog.  I'm glad to be back writing about intentional leadership -- leading by design -- for nonprofit boards and staffs.  Certainly, my thoughts are now informed by the forthcoming book, in which Joan and I posit that nonprofits need to focus resources on leadership, not just management.  Most cultural nonprofits are at a crossroad, as is the sector in general, where nothing is qu

Change for Your Board in 2010: A Polling Update

WE'RE A DAY INTO MY LAST POLL (SEE RIGHT) AND the responses are clustering in two areas: 1) removing dead wood from the board and 2) using better/different tools to make decisions/evaluate performance. There are still six days left for your colleagues to cast their vote! In the meantime, those of you who are in need of tools for decision-making might want to check my posts on taking stock here , here and here .

Three Most Important Nonprofit Executive Director Soft Skills

If you were asked to narrow down the list of executive director qualifications to the three most important, which ones would you identify? Would the list consist of soft skills, hard skills, or some combination? Would your list be based on the great ED you are or one you've worked for, or would it be your wish list for the ED you haven't been fortunate yet to work for?  This was an assignment in my recent online class in leadership and administration for the American Association for State and Local History . I asked the class to review three-five advertisements for museum directors and analyze what these listings intimated about the organization’s past experience, current focus and goals, and future aspirations. Then, I asked the class to identify what they consider to be the three most important qualifications they would look for in a director. (Okay, so there's more than three if you dissect my three big groups.)  Soft skills outnumbered hard skills, although