More on Board Spine, an Interesting Experience

It Often is the Little Things That Make a Difference and are Just Enough

I had an experience a few days ago that is very relevant to the blog I posted in October on the need for a board to have spine as a necessary component of governance. This was a favorable experience for once and fit the turnaround pattern that was emerging in this organization.

Here is the story. I was standing in an informal group prior to a meeting, a group which included the prior chair of the organization on whose board (mentioned earlier) I had reluctantly joined to help turn the organization around and rescue it before it went over the edge. Also, in the group was the CEO we had appointed to replace the previous one. This board was, (or became soon enough), a Policy Governance® board and so was looking forward to the first Ends (intended results, for whom, & the resources to be used) monitoring report under this new CEO. The new CEO had been unable to submit an ends report last year after just after arriving because the prior CEO had terminated the data system that enabled the quantification of ends.

As the group visited informally the new CEO seemed excited about his work on the ends monitoring, which would be submitted to the board very shortly. Suddenly into the casual conversation of this group, the CEO commented that one of the reasons he had been so diligent regarding reinstating the data system and driving him toward excellence concerning the ends monitoring was that the chairman last year had made a single comment. When he, the new CEO, had told the board last year, just after taking his position, that he would be unable to submit ends monitoring because the data system had been terminated by his predecessor (but he would be reinstating it), the chair had simply commented, “That (failure to monitor ends) is not acceptable.” The CEO told the group that that comment had “rung in his head” all year and he had not forgotten it!

One comment by a chair was all, in this case, that it took to reinforce to this willing and able CEO the fact that the board was serious about receiving decent ends monitoring reports. He assumed (rightly) that the chairman was speaking for the Board, and he needed no further indication of Board resolve.

That is a wonderful example of the use of just the right amount of Board firmness required in this case, and for this CEO, who got the message and willingly set about complying. The chair knew his board and where it stood in this matter and applied just the right amount of firmness to his message. Nothing in writing, just a simple, almost casual comment was all it took.

The Ends monitoring report? It was great! It focused the Board on the ends accomplishments of the organization, and suddenly all the effort and pain of the past couple of years were worth it. The Board and CEO, together, contemplated the future in terms of ends, discussed new challenges and dreamed about the future. That board went home feeling it had done its job.