The ad reads: “Car ‘phones. They’re no longer the privilege of the chosen few.” In 1982, I actually had one of these Vodaphone babies. I was climbing the corporate ladder of a Fortune 500 company in Chicago and got one installed in my company car. Yes, the company provided me with a personal car (every 50,000 miles I got a new one) and all the gas and maintenance (those really were the good old days). My employer was on the cutting edge of management effectiveness and efficiency. I was part of testing the technology.

My “mobile” car phone was the size and weight of a very large brick. And it was truly a car phone because the base was mounted to (and used power from) the car. I didn’t need to go to the gym to lift weights because the handset provided a good deal of dead weight training. Those of us testing the Vodaphone used to joke that if it quit working, it would make a great boat anchor. I’m surprised I never got whiplash from lifting the handset to my ear while driving. Okay, so yeah. If using your cellphone with your bluetooth is a driving hazard, just imagine how dangerous I was on Lakeshore Drive!

Now here’s what I carry around today: a phone that is not tethered to anything (except maybe my hand or earbuds). It’s about the weight of a pair of scissors and about the size of three packs of dental floss laid side-by-side. And it doesn’t merely connect me by voice-to-voice over cellular. It’s my personal data assistant, office manager, and personal entertainment center. It also responds to my whims. (Siri is my new love, but don’t tell my husband!)

So why do boards of all types and sizes still run with 30-year-old technology? Yes, the basics are still sound. Compare today’s smart phones with my car phone 30 years ago. Why would you choose to carry around a big, old brick that doesn’t do much versus a small, sleek device that caters to your every whim? Is your board functioning with a mindset from 30 years ago? Before you say no, consider this.  Nonprofit organizations proliferated in the 1980′s (Board Source, 2003). Much nonprofit regulation did too. Not surprising that governance structure, culture, and practices emanated from that period. Businessmen populated boards and they brought their management expertise to the boardroom. Unfortunately, management expertise does not necessarily translate to governing expertise. In the management mindset, governing is typically viewed as “management one level up” and tethers a board to the past instead of creating the future.

Why does it seem like transformational governance is still the privilege of the chosen few? Board members and executives, please throw the 30-year-old+ mindset out the window. C’mon now. Don’t say that you don’t know what I’m talking about. At association and nonprofit organization conferences, I still hear the same complaints that I was hearing 20 years ago. Here’s the chronic complaint: why does my board micromanage (i.e., get caught up in administrivia)? Because they don’t have anything more important to do. Because they haven’t found a way to delegate effectively and know their wishes for the organization will be fulfilled. Or, the board recently had a crisis that involved a major financial risk (e.g., embezzlement, lawsuit, the ED who was the “rainmaker” just left). The list goes on and on. People tend to revert to old, dysfunctional behaviors when they feel unsure or threatened or are just plain bored. Governing from this mindset is like picking up the Vodaphone and expecting to have Siri grant your next wish. Remember the implication when you expect different results from doing the same thing over and over again.

The magic of smart phone technology did not happen because Steve Jobs said, “Let’s redesign the Vodaphone!” The magic happened because Steve Jobs had a vision of something sleek, powerful, and ready to go to work for you out of the box. Why would you buy 30-year-old technology when you could have an iPhone?

Unleash the power of your board and explore how you can best use the collective wisdom of all those smart minds in the room. Don’t make them sit through one more staff report or approve one more budget until you think about why you’re asking them to do it. What is the value added? What magic could they envison if given the time?

Most of my client teams (board and staff leaders) are geographically dispersed. As an organizational and governance consultant, I give them the value of my expertise in organizational structure, policy development, and implementation. Usually I end up working as a leadership coach as well. When the client board and staff meet face-to-face only once or twice a year, communications and consistency is a challenge. In some cases, the entire board never gets together face-to-face.

I talked with Keith Ferrazzi who is an expert on relationship development. When I asked him if geographically dispersed teams can work together effectively, he asserted it was absolutely essential for the team to get together face-to-face at least once (personal communication, June 15, 2010). I believe he is correct. The ability to see someone’s facial expressions, gestures, and body language helps you interpret what you hear in that person’s voice and read in their emails. It’s also more difficult to get angry with someone you’ve met.

Working with a board is challenging in the best of circumstances, but working with a virtual, geographically dispersed, or technology-networked board creates unique group process problems leaders need to recognize. Forging a cohesive team from individuals in the same building is challenging. A dispersed board team faces multiple difficulties of time, distance, social, and cultural differences. Subgroups form and sometimes this leads to in-group versus out-group conflict and competition. Dispersed teams need to establish shared norms and agreement for common action toward overarching (i.e., superordinate) goals.

Shared norms start with setting ground rules about communication and how conflicts will be resolved. Conflict is normal. That’s why it’s so important to establish how your board will deal with conflict before it happens. One rule you should have is to avoid prejudging each other. Listen first (or read email first) as an advocate, as though you will need to defend your fellow board member’s position.

Everyone on the board brings a unique set of information, resources and knowledge. After setting the ground rules, the board needs to fully discuss the benefits of sharing mutually. The enhanced ability to generate knowledge, stimulate creativity, and increase efficiency through diversity is a major advantage. Diverse points-of-view make for better decision-making. A full discussion helps board members learn how to value diversity and share the wealth of knowledge and skills available. From this sharing, trust is built.

Setting ground rules, communicating and sharing mutual knowledge help create trust. But for everything to work, everyone on the team needs to take responsibility for the board’s success. If things aren’t going well, take the initiative to suggest an alternative communication tool — teleconference, data conferencing (Skype, NetMeeting, etc.) — that allows for simultaneous discussion. The more variety, the better.

No matter what’s going on, be sure that you stay upbeat. Nothing helps a board work together better than proactive, positive board members!

Reading Scott Stratten’s book on Unmarketing. His take on ROI for social media (about it giving him ulcers!) resonates with me. As it did with many folks on the ASAE executive management section listserv. The thread was titled “Why is everyone making this so damned complicated?” As Stratten pointed out in his book, why is the right question. ROI is the wrong answer.

As a former trade association exec, my team constantly struggled with determining the ROI or value of various member relations tactics. Newsletters, websites, direct mail, workshops, speakers bureaus, social media are all tactics that are tied to strategic goals. All tactics are part of the overall strategy for an association to be visible and approachable, friendly and trustworthy. Selecting the right metrics to measure ROI stems from business objectives and strategies — not from the tactics. Resources should be organized around the strategic metrics — not around tactics. The challenge is determining the goal and coming up with an operational definition of how achieving the goal will look. If the goal is a birthday cake, then the operational definition is the recipe. But first you need to decide: what flavor and texture of cake do you want?

Susan Etlinger conducted qualitative research with 60 social media marketers and vendors. The purpose of her research was to tie social media performance to business goals. She identified six business goal categories: brand health, innovation, customer experience, marketing optimization, operational efficiency, and revenue generation. For some associations, brand health may be the goal (i.e., understanding how people talk about the services, products, and other selections available).

The social experience is an important component of any association. Revenue is not a transaction. It is a relationship. Associations need to know how their online actions are affecting those relationships. One interesting finding of Etlinger’s is improved brand health and increased revenues had a direct correlation with social media and customer experience. If you want to know what people are saying about your organization, google analytics probably won’t provide the data you need.

One benefit of social media is fulfillment of a need for members to have an online community of like-minded professionals. Which, in turn, can attract other birds of a feather. When people cannot come together face to face, social media provides a substitute for the proverbial water cooler. Social media forums provide proximity for people of similar attitudes to come together virtually. Attitude similarity is one of the most consistent factors of attraction in social psychology research.

Social media is a tactic to engage members and fulfill a need for affiliation and dialogue with like-minded others. If this is the only “outcome” of this tactic, it has value. Measurable? Perhaps not in traditional terms. However, we all know it is more costly to get a new member than to keep an existing member. If members are retained because they feel connected and engaged, social media may be a contributor. But an added benefit is dynamic social media forums may also attract some new lurkers, fans, and eventual members.

Social media is part of the entire recipe relative to an association’s business goals for membership retention and recruitment, product and service sales, or public relations. Start with what you want to measure before you choose a measurement tool.

It gets complicated when you’re trying to measure how good a chocolate cake tastes when carrot cake was what you wanted.

My fellow Rotarian Andrew Oczkewicz put out the call for volunteers for the Saint Martin’s burger & curly fries booth at Lakefair in Olympia and I responded. Last night was opening night and I had the very important job of inside coordinator. What that means is that I took the orders from the lovely ladies serving our customers (Cindy, Stella, and Alicia) and made sure the best curly fry cooks on the planet (Caren and Tony) knew how many baskets of fries to drop into hot oil.
Then I handed the order to Caren’s multi-talented daughter Tatiana to get the burgers made to order and the soft drinks dispensed.

What is cool about the Saint Martin’s truck is that all the fries are cut on site using great quality fresh potatoes. The oil is changed frequently and the curly fry cooks are true artists in making these fries the right consistency of crunchy and soft and with great flavor.

And the Saint Burgers are great too!

If you go to Lakefair, be sure to stop by the Saint Martin’s truck and tell them Sherry sent you!

I came home smelling like a big curly fry and my feet hurt, but the people in the Saint Martin’s truck made it fun and worthwhile. Even on the first night, we were a formidable short-order team. If this governance stuff doesn’t work out, I now have experience coordinating fast food orders. Hear that McDonald’s?

The Little Red Hen was an industrious little hen. From a few seeds, she had a vision of a beautifully golden, richly fragrant loaf of bread.

Along the way, she tried to enlist others in the barnyard for help to plant the seeds, take the wheat to the mill, and bake the bread. All who were asked said, “Not I!”

When the bread was done, she asked who would help her eat it. Of course, everyone wanted a piece.

The course of Policy Governance can look much the same. In the beginning, planting the seeds and developing the framework for better governing practices is a lot of work. But in the end, the board has a practical and robust system for managing its work. In the end, everyone wants on board!

A client said, “We had trouble filling board seats and getting board members excited and engaged before we started governing by policy. Now that we’ve had a few years of success, everyone wants to be a part of it.”

One person had the vision of how governing by policy could improve the effectiveness and efficiency of board’s work and create a transformed, successful organization. Once the seeds were planted and the bread was baked, the sweet smell of success attracted everyone.

Does Policy Governance take a lot of work? Yes.

Will Policy Governance make a difference in your success? Yes.

Will everyone take part in the creation of a transformed organization? No. (Just ask The Little Red Hen).

Is having a board organization that everyone wants to be part of worth it?

Well, you need to answer that question for yourself.

Policy Governance practitioners and users are a small ecosystem in the realm of governance. To move Policy Governance consulting from a collection of individual consultants into the next generation, several individuals have banded together in a cooperation experiment called The Governance Corporation. What is behind our cooperative enterprise is developing and evolving the practice of Policy Governance. The main idea is investing in expanding core capabilities through collaborative learning and reinvesting returns into the ecosystem to provide a place for future generations of practitioners.

By pooling development of leading edge governance practices, we believe clients will receive the benefits. Our collaboration will lead to clients having a competitive edge through effective governance. We believe the rewards to the client are products, services, and practices that no one of us could bring individually; or at an affordable price to the client. Our cooperation, collaboration, or coopetition is not just for our mutual benefit but for the benefit of the clients. It’s a win-win-win situation. I win, my colleagues win, you win.

Go to the Governance Corporation website, if you’re interested in watching our experiment unfold. Check out our blog. I’ve started a rant on the current state of governance. Add your comments, join the dialog, or start a debate! All are welcome.

An acquaintance asked me yesterday what I do. “I work with board and executive leaders on a system of governance that helps them get rid of time-wasters and makes the most of the talent in the organization.” My acquaintance said that governance was a new term to her.

For those who are new to the concept, Tom Friedman offered an excellent quote in his New York Times Op-Ed column of January 5, 2010. The quote is “from Dov Seidman, the C.E.O. of LRN, which helps companies build ethical cultures, and the author of the book ‘How.’ ‘You have to enlist and inspire people in a set of values. People need to be governed both from the outside, through compliance with rules, and from the inside, inspired by shared values.’”

Sound like good governance to you?

So, what’s stopping you from practicing it? The problem I’ve encountered is that too often, bright and capable peoples’ skills and talents are wasted in board meetings discussing whether or not to purchase new office furniture or how many pieces of collateral were distributed at the last fundraiser. Discussions like these are about looking backward rather than creating a vision for the future. Discussions like these enervate, rather than inspire.

Are you tired of operating in a model of scarcity (not enough time, not enough money, not enough people…) and ready to move toward a model of abundance (stop focusing on the past, getting rid of the time-wasters and envisioning what you can achieve)?

Policy Governance® offers a system for governing boards to ensure that they are complying with outside rules and allows them to spend more time discussing what inspires the organization. Policy Governance gets the board beyond what is to what can be.

Last night, President Obama said that democracy is messy.

Democracy is messy. Governing boards represent democracy in action and the complexity of the process of representing diverse owners. That’s why governing boards need every available tool in their toolbox. Policy Governance® represents the most comprehensive body of thought on board leadership and governing.

Caroline Oliver cites Couto and Guthrie:

“Mediating structures are a prerequisite to democracy. They preserve the liberty of citizens to act on public matters apart from government. They permit their members representation and participation in the sociopolitical arrangements of the neighbourhood, community, nation, or state.”

Oliver goes on to say this: “If owners don’t know what boards are talking about or why, if they don’t understand who does what and why, how can they possibly participate? Boards are key agencies in society, bringing democracy to the highest level of every organisation. It is their job to define and demand organisational success and standards of ethics, the law and prudence on our behalf. This is true board leadership and we need it more than ever.”

On a deeper, personal level, I’m convinced that if boards set a better example for governing then there is hope for democracy worldwide. That’s my mission. My theory is that getting the message to governing boards has the potential to create an accelerated learning track in the United States to better governance and improved democratic process.

Boards empower the owners to govern without actually needing everyone to sit at the board table. To do the job right, Boards need the right tools. Policy Governance can boost organizational success and the quality and level of board decisions. Policy Governance will not be the right choice for every board, but it should be a choice.

Policy Governance (PG) is a registered trademark of Dr. John Carver to preserve the integrity of the governance system, not for financial gain. Policy Governance is free to anyone.

From Rick Lamb of The Horse Show came the following gem. People in groups have similar focus issues! When I read this, I thought that these similar things happen in group meetings. The job of a facilitator is to create the focus exercises that help the group stay on task.

With apologies in advance to Rick Lamb, I’ve inserted “people” words [in brackets] for “horse” words. Enjoy!

The world is full of distractions for your [group]. Getting [them] to focus on the task at hand starts with you.

You can’t change what goes on around you and your [group] and sometimes you will lose [their] attention.

Trainer John Lyons suggests that you have an exercise ready to work on, focus on doing that exercise, and be ready for a little mental battle with your [group].

“[Groups have a tendency to mentally wander. They distract themselves by mentally playing] a game. I bet I can make you think [I'm really very important because I need to be constantly in touch via cell phone or text]. No, no, I’m doing this. But I’m [not interested in this part. I want to move on to the next agenda item]. No, no, I’m doing this. But [lunch is] coming up. No, no, I’m doing this. But there’s a lot of people. No, no, I’m doing this. And so it’s just a game and it’s learning how to keep our focus on that game. Then what’s going to happen, the longer [the facilitator stays] focused, pretty soon that [group] is going to come right over and start working on what I’m working on.”

Avoid checking out the distraction yourself. It usually doesn’t matter what it is, and if you let it draw your attention, you’ve lost the focus game.

Those of you who know me know that I’m a big fan of Thomas Friedman. His book, The World is Flat” changed all of my perceptions about the effects of globalization on marketing.

Tom (p. 357) warns that “niche businesses can get turned into vanilla commodity businesses faster than ever in a flat world.” Companies must constantly assess their competitive strengths and make critical decisions regarding products or services that aren’t differentiated from the competition. Friedman uses the example of the Bank of India. The Bank of India was facing increasing competition and realized that it needed to adopt Web-based banking and become more customer friendly. The Bank of India did an assessment of its core competencies and decided that it needed to outsource data warehousing, document-imaging technology, telebanking, Internet banking, and automated teller machines. Guess who got the outsource contract from the Bank of India? An American-owned computer company. Hewlett Packard.

Today’s marketing strategy is knowing your core competencies and knowing what you don’t do well.

Why do I bring this up? Because nonprofits need to perform, as Friedman calls it, an X-ray of their organizational capacity — before there is a funding crisis. The Virginia Treatment Center for Children (VTCC) was created in 1962 by the Virginia Legislature to provide state-of-the-art service, training and research in the field of child mental health. When the state faced budget cuts and told VTCC they needed to shut down, leadership needed to come up with a new strategy — fast. The lack of stable leadership in the past and fragmented, functional silos within the hospital had caused the staff to feel “under siege.” All were doing their jobs, but did not feel supported by other teams or the state bureaucracy. Asking two critical questions was a brilliant move by administrative leadership:

1. What are the most critical child and adolescent mental health needs and problems in the Commonwealth of Virginia?
2. Within its current resource base, what should the treatment center do to most effectively respond to these needs and problems

Instead of asking “What’s wrong with this institution?”, the leadership asked for people to identify what was right; what critical needs were being met, and how the VTCC could effectively build on those services. The right questions were asked to affirm what was working well. VTCC also sought to stop doing things that it didn’t do well.

Overall, the VTCC sought to establish connections with other human services agencies to provide the services that VTCC did not do well. In essence, the VTCC created a network of service support for the community to enable the VTCC to focus on what the VTCC staff did best. Staff were educated on the opportunities provided by an improved network of services; and a framework and processes to enhance staff communication was developed. As Cohen and Cohen note, “In an era of scarce resources, human services organizations are increasingly forced to establish priorities. The treatment center attempted to establish a balance between responding to a small group of children whose needs required intensive intervention and focusing on enhancing the knowledge and capacity of the broader community through research, training, and consultation.”[1]

[1] Cohen, R. & Cohen, J. (2000). Chiseled in Sand: Perspectives on Change in Human Services Organizations.