I take my wisdom where I find it and their puzzlement has
inspired me to challenge myself as to what answer I should be giving to help them
better understand the work I do and also to identify and be proactive with the
issues they face. To help you think about your change, here are the
issues I run into again and again:
1. Role confusion between the board and the
executive director, which may result in boundary crossings with the executive
director performing the work of the board and the board performing the work of
the exec.
2. Lack of systems and measurements to ensure
excellence, which may present as high turnover of clients and/or staff.
3.
Lack of policies to ensure safety or program
continuity, which may lead to a general feeling of unease, or worse – a crisis.
4. Lack of agreed upon goals, strategies or
expectations, which may leave people spinning their wheels but not moving
forward.
5.
No formal plan to recruit new board members or
develop and evaluate current board members, which may result in a disengaged
board, sometime with one or two members calling all the shots.
6. No formal plan to raise money from a variety of
sources/methods, make new friends or secure in-kind resources, which may result
in staff layoffs that no one saw coming, fear of closure, multiple special
events that raise little money and, occasionally, emergency fund raising.
7.
No professional development planning for the
leadership or staff, which may result in the disengagement of staff.
8. Executive Directors who are not aware of their
role in building the board, which may lead to the creation of a weaker board
that does not challenge the executive director.
9.
Boards that are not aware of the full scope or
boundaries of their role, which may result in a lack of governance.
10. All of the above. (Many of my clients meet none of the above, and that's a different blog post.)
Capacity building is an important part of the foundation of
successful change and addressing these issues usually depend on the following
elements. If any of these elements are missing, the potential for sustainable
change is compromised.
1.
The organization’s capacity for change
2.
People’s willingness to be uncomfortable and/or
make others uncomfortable
3.
The strength of the leaders of the organizations
and their emotional fortitude
4.
The willingness to implement a plan (and not
just check it off a list and put in on a
shelf.)
Do I have a model for each issue? I do.… yet the issues rarely come alone. It might be issues 1, 3 and 7. It might be issues 9 and 4. It might be issues 5, 8 and 9. It might be 10. Even though the issues may be similar, the
circumstance that prompts a call to a consultant is not. As such, I offer individually tailored plans
to meet the needs of my clients. Those
plans include trainings, meeting facilitation, plan development, goal and
strategy setting, tactical planning to meet those goals, as well as coaching.
Which one do I use in which case? It depends…..
