John Pearson's Buckets Blog

Recruiting Board Members - ECFA Toolkit

Issue No. 260 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features a new governance toolkit for your next board meeting. The resource from ECFA includes a short DVD and viewing guides for each board member. Plus, this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.

Dating a Board Prospect

A Chinese proverb says, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.”

That’s also relevant counsel for your board member recruitment process.  The best time to discern board member criteria and qualifications is before you invite inappropriate people onto your board. But moving from “slot-filling” to a thoughtful discernment process is not easy.

There’s help!  The new ECFA Governance Toolbox Series has launched and the first title in the series is “Recruiting Board Members: Leveraging the 4 Phases of Board Recruitment—Cultivation, Recruitment, Orientation and Engagement.”

This “View-Inspire-Engage” toolbox includes a 13-minute DVD, 12 Board Member Read-and-Engage Viewing Guides, and a Facilitator Guide with just-in-time help to engage your board on this fork-in-the-road core competency.  The Facilitator Guide provides three discussion options:
   Option 1: 15-30 minute board discussion
   Option 2: 30-60 minute discussion
   Option 3: Board Retreat (or a 2-hour session)

The fast-moving DVD features a short In-the-Trenches Board Story on recruitment: “The Shortest Board Term in the History of the World.”  It’s humorous, but poignant. Perhaps your board members will see themselves in the “got-the-binder-joined-the-board” video clip.

When viewing the video, each board member will follow along with the colorful 20-page Read-and-Engage Viewing Guide—and will then interact with the 27 self-assessment questions from the four phases of board recruitment.  Example:

SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS:
How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statements?

CULTIVATION: “We follow the best practice of ‘dating’ a board prospect—over an appropriate period of time—before ‘proposing marriage.’”

CULTIVATION: “We ensure that a board prospect’s spouse, family (and sometimes employer) is aware of the ‘time, talent and treasure’ requirements of board service.”

RECRUITMENT: “Compared to the due diligence our senior leaders exercise when hiring staff, our board exercises a high level of due diligence when discerning a board prospect’s suitability for board service.”

RECRUITMENT: “We go slow and rely on the 18- to 36-month cultivation process by encouraging potential prospects to serve in key volunteer roles to assess their diligence and faithfulness.”

ORIENTATION: “Our orientation process includes required reading of at least one governance book, such as The Imperfect Board Member, by Jim Brown, or Owning Up: The 14 Questions Every Board Member Needs to Ask, by Ram Charan.”

ORIENTATION: “Our orientation process involves at least 5 to 10 hours of orientation, over a period of several months, and concludes with a written or online feedback survey.”

ENGAGEMENT: “We know and leverage ‘The 3 Powerful S’s’ (Spiritual Gifts, Strengths and Styles) of our board members. We are also students of our CEO’s unique strengths and giftedness—and his/her preferred working style.”

ENGAGEMENT: “We can point, with delight, to numerous examples of how God-honoring board members—fully engaged—have leveraged their giftedness to help us make strategic, fork-in-the-road, spiritually discerning decisions to the glory of God!”

These are just 8 of the 27 questions listed in the toolbox. In addition, there is a starter page on board qualifications, “Board Nominees Must Meet Our 6 Ds Criteria.” They include: 1) Discerning Decision-Maker, 2) Demonstrated Passion, 3) Documented Team Player, 4) Diligent and Faithful Participant, 5) Doer (he or she “walks the talk” and reference checks affirm a God-honoring lifestyle and character), and 6) Donor.

The Facilitator Guide provides a link to a hidden webpage with bonus resources and templates, such as a sample table of contents (31 tabs) for a Board Nominee Orientation Binder, plus “The Board Bucket” chapter from my book, Mastering the Management Buckets.  I’ve worked with ECFA on the concept and writing of the first two toolkits—so I recommend them highly!  More titles are coming.

To order from ECFA, click on this link: ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 1:  Recruiting Board Members.



Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) The DVD in the ECFA Governance Toolbox Series quotes Elton Trueblood, “Pious shoddy is still shoddy.” How would you describe your board’s competencies in each of the four phases of: Cultivation, Recruitment, Orientation, and Engagement? Shoddy? Pious Shoddy? Excellent?

 2) In the Recruitment phase, the toolkit suggests that a prospect, prior to serving on the board, should already be a generous giver per Matthew 6:21, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” The viewing guide notes, “Many organizations define ‘generous’ as prioritizing your organization in the Top-3 of a person’s annual giving. Board members at all income levels can be generous.” What is our board’s expectation (or policy) on board member generosity?

Honing the Smithereens Out of a Perfectly Adequate System - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

One of the big ideas in Chapter 18 (The Systems Bucket) in my book, Mastering the Management Buckets, is to resist the urge to tinker endlessly to perfect the flawless system. Perfection is not the goal.

It’s not always prudent to wait until all your ducks are in a row.  Sometimes even systems people must agree that “good is good enough” and it’s time to launch the project. Too much tinkering to get it “right” may create an unintended consequence—overhead overload.

Some of your team members are systems zealots and have overused skills. Some may hone the smithereens out of a perfectly adequate system. Others, addicted to perfection, rarely finish a project.  You may have a team member—a genius—who is unable to tolerate non-geniuses. “Why don’t they get it?” So, what should you do?

Read Chapter 18 and check out the resources on the Systems Bucket webpage, including a unique add-water-and-stir book that is amazingly simple, yet profound. FYI: For Your Improvement: A Guide for Development and Coaching, from two feedback experts.

Read This Before Our Next Meeting

Issue No. 259 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting will challenge your long-held biases about effective meetings. The author says a meeting agenda is like a driver’s license. “It shows people that this is a Modern Meeting and that you’re serious about driving.” Plus, this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.

Nonchalant About Bad Meetings

Al Pittampalli sticks it to us with two big ideas on page two of his book:
   “We have too many meetings.”
   “We have too many bad meetings.”

How can you not read the rest of his 66-page book, cleverly titled, Read This Before Our Next Meeting.  If your life is filled with good meetings, you would have already written a book explaining your good fortune—because the rest of us can’t relate.

Pittampalli adds, “Over time, we’ve become nonchalant about bad meetings. If an operating room were as sloppily run as our meetings, patients would die. If a restaurant kitchen put as little planning into a meal as we put into our meetings, dinner would never be served.”

Then he delivers the fatal blow: “We’re now addicted to meetings that insulate us from the work we ought to be doing.”

“In a world with fewer meetings, we’d have more time for our real work, the work we do that actually propels our organization forward.”

“We might finally have time to do what’s important, not just what’s urgent: mentor a colleague, connect with people in our industry, or practice our presentation to the board.”

What’s wrong? The author says that “false urgency is echoed in three common meeting types.”
   1. Convenience meetings (a memo would have sufficed)
   2. Formality meetings (“Meetings called by managers who think it is their job to hold them.”)
   3. Social meetings (they expand to fit the time)

The solution? “Meetings need to be less like the endless commercial breaks during a football game and more like pit stops at the Daytona 500.”

So in this brilliant little book (reminder: just 66 pages to get your team back on track), the author introduces seven principles of the “Modern Meeting Standard” including:
   --“Meet only to support a decision that has already been made.”
   --“Reject the unprepared.”
   --“Work with brainstorms, not against them.”

Example: the senior executives at Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta “gather in the hallway of the president’s office for a talk that lasts under ten minutes. No chitchat, no sitting, just high-energy business. The instigator gets buy-in, a decision is resolved, and they move on.”

Another Pittampalli Principle: limit the number of attendees. Potential participants should ask four questions—in advance of the meeting:
   1. Will you be able to function if you read about the meeting after it’s over?
   2. If you are given the decision we’re discussing in advance, can you give me your opinion in advance?
   3. Do you add any value by sitting in the meeting without participating?
   4. Are you attending symbolically, or simply as a way to demonstrate your power?

Warning! On the social styles chart (see the People Bucket) of Drivers, Analyticals, Amiables and Expressives, this get-it-done-faster author is a Driver:

“If you have no strong opinion, have no interest in the outcome, and are not instrumental for any coordination that needs to take place, we don’t need you. From now on, if you’re invited to a meeting where you don’t belong, please don’t attend.”

You’ll need to soften his rhetoric with the versatility required when working with all four social styles. Yet—his prophetic voice is long overdue.

He preaches, “We must demand a culture where bad meetings aren’t tolerated.” That’s good, but sometimes Drivers are autocratic…when they should take a deep breath and just inspire.  Example: “If you hold a meeting that wastes the time of your colleagues, you’re blacklisted.” Yikes!

I’m recommending this book to all of my clients—it’s that good. I underlined and made notes on at least half of the pages and I still read it in less than two hours. It’s crammed with very, very helpful ideas like:
   --instead of writing minutes, detail the action steps
   --what to do when two people own a decision (a major sin!)
   --the problem with premature harmony
   --an online link to the “Modern Meeting Agenda” (a change-your-life one-page template) that includes a seven-point pledge at the bottom, “Please sign this pledge and bring to the meeting.”
   --How to use the TIM (Time Is Money) digital timer (see below).

This book will dramatically (let me say that again—dramatically) move your organization from bad meetings to a productive results-driven focus.

To order from Amazon, click on the graphic for Read This Before Our Next Meeting: The Modern Meeting Standard for Successful Organizations, by Al Pittampalli.

 

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) The author suggests that sometimes a meeting convener should just create a video message—and email it out, instead of wasting everyone’s valuable time in yet one more boring, non-productive meeting.  What’s the upside and downside of doing this occasionally?
 2) In the 10-page FAQ section, there’s a question for Amiables. “What if I end up making a decision that not everyone agrees with?” The answer: “Congratulations are in order. You’re a leader.” Do we inspire our people here to step up and lead—and make decisions—or are we so focused on getting consensus that the train never leaves the station?”

And...special thanks to Art Snead at Ridgecrest Summer Camps, for recommending this book!

Bring TIM! (Time Is Money) - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

One of the big ideas in Chapter 16 (The Delegation Bucket) in my book, Mastering the Management Buckets, is to calculate the payroll cost of some of your meetings—and then determine how much payroll time you could save in a year if your meetings were 20 percent shorter and 20 percent more effective. (See the Meeting Cost Calculator chart on page 217.)

But…a chart is so old school!  Here’s the perfect gift for your boss, your board chair or your assistant.  It’s the BRING TIM! (Time Is Money) Meeting Cost Calculator and Clock.  I have one—and it has been my best $25 investment in years!

To order the Time Is Money Meeting Cost Calculator and Clock from Amazon click on the graphic:

 

It’s simple to use for meetings or conference calls: just enter the number of meeting participants and an estimated average hourly wage. Press START.  The growing cost of the meeting is displayed on the clock—minute by minute.  An optional beep and/or flashing light gives you a reminder every 15 minutes to keep the meeting moving.

Psalm 90:12 reads, “Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” And may we number our meeting minutes too!

For more resources on effective meetings including the book, Death by Meeting, by Patrick Lencioni, visit the Meetings Bucket webpage.

P.S. And this reminder: join Dan Bolin and me for the one-hour webcast, "7 Deadly Sins of Boards," on Oct. 25, 2012, hosted by Christian Leadership Alliance. Click for more info.

 

Make Your Values Mean Something

Issue No. 258 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting asks you to re-think your core values with a short HBS article by Patrick Lencioni on four kinds of values statements.  Plus, this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.

Core Values for Dummies

Core values on the wall are routine. Core values lived out—in the boardroom, lunchroom, restroom and choir room—are radical. What’s on the wall is often a stunning indicator of what you value most. Let me explain.

Values Statement #1: One quarter in seminary, I took three courses from one of my favorite profs, Elmer Towns. Every weekend he traveled to a megachurch—and after 10 weekends wrote his 1970 classic, The Ten Largest Sunday Schools and What Makes Them Grow.

I don’t remember the three courses, but I do remember the riveting Monday morning debriefs he shared about his latest ecclesiastical reconnaissance mission. One in particular. Towns told us that one megachurch had an over-sized picture of their pastor on the sanctuary back wall. Huge!  The picture next to the founding pastor was Jesus. Much, much smaller.

Values Statement #2: A couple years ago, I visited a mid-size church in Southern California—once known for its choral ministries—and observed that the choir rehearsal room walls were decorated with autographed photos of celebrities, famous musicians and B-list VIPs.

Contrast that signage with the small plaque in the pulpit at the Church of the Open Door in Los Angeles, visible only to the speaker, which read, “Sir, we would see Jesus” (John 12:21).

Values Statement #3: When Lowell Bakke was pastor at Bethany Baptist Church in Puyallup, Wash., the traditional lobby missionary map got a new twist. Under the banner “Our Missionaries,” the map inspired attenders with dozens and dozens of church member snapshots—picturing people in their nine-to-five jobs.

Patrick Lencioni writes, “Most values statements are bland, toothless, or just plain dishonest. And far from being harmless, as some executives assume, they’re often highly destructive. Empty values statements create cynical and dispirited employees, alienate customers, and undermine managerial credibility.”

Lencioni says there are four categories of values:

CORE VALUES. “They are the source of a company’s distinctiveness and must be maintained at all costs.”

ASPIRATIONAL VALUES. These values “are those that a company needs to succeed in the future but currently lacks.”

PERMISSION-TO-PLAY VALUES. Lencioni says these values, like honesty, integrity and respect for others, are the “minimum behavioral and social standards required of any employee.” They don’t define or differentiate an organization from others—and should not be considered core values.

For example, one company CEO insisted that integrity was one of their core values. Lencioni cautioned them. “Unless his company was willing to adopt unusually tough measures to demonstrate that it held a higher standard of integrity than most companies, integrity should be classified as a permission-to-play value, not a core value.”

ACCIDENTAL VALUES. These values “arise spontaneously without being cultivated by leadership and take hold over time.” They can be helpful or harmful, such as the accidental value Lencioni discovered at a fashion apparel company where the young, hip employees “owned a disproportionate amount of black clothing.”

Yikes! Now what to do with the $3,000 custom-designed graphic of your too-numerous-to-remember values in your office lobby?

Two choices:

Option 1: Read or re-read the “How Do We Behave?” section (pages 91 to 104) in Lencioni’s latest best-seller, The Advantage. (See order info below.)

Option 2: If you’d prefer the “core values for dummies” version, download Lencioni’s 2002 Harvard Business Review article, “Make Your Values Mean Something.” In just four-and-a-half pages, you’ll see why cookie-cutter values are boring and inspire no one. You’ll also read why Intel “takes pride in the pricklier aspects of its culture” by holding high the values of “engagement confrontation” and “verbal jousting.”

Values Statement #4: According to Lencioni, a core value at Siebel is customer satisfaction. “All the artwork on the walls comes from customers’ annual reports, and all the conference rooms are named after customers. Even bonuses and compensation packages are awarded on the basis of customer satisfaction surveys conducted by an outside auditor.”

What values statements do your walls shout out? Last year I had the privilege of guiding the leadership at Whittier Area Community Church through a core values process. They landed on three: Narration, Exploration, and Celebration. Lencioni would like them!

To purchase and download the Harvard Business Review article, “Make Your Values Mean Something,” by Patrick Lencioni (Reprint R0207J), visit the HBR website.

To order and/or read my review of Lencioni’s latest book, The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business, click here.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) Pop Quiz! Here’s a blank sheet of paper. Write down our core values—word for word. How did you do? Now segment our current values into Lencioni’s four categories: Core Values, Aspirational Values, Permission-to-Play Values, and Accidental Values. Any thoughts?
 2) When is the last time we affirmed or celebrated a staff member, board member or volunteer who intentionally lived our values? Lencioni says “that employees will not believe a message until they’ve heard it repeated by executives seven times.” What’s the next step for us—as a result of having this values statements discussion?

Eliminate Pejorative People Labels - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

One of the big ideas in Chapter 17 (The Operations Bucket) in my book, Mastering the Management Buckets, is to ensure that your core values are lived out at all levels of your organization—including around the water cooler.

Paint a picture for your people of a workplace that honors—and doesn’t denigrate—the administratively gifted people on your team.  Eliminate pejorative labels like “number-crunchers,” “geeks,” and “paper-pushers.” Call your people “people” and use business card titles that enhance team members and your entire organization. What would Jesus do?

For more help, visit the Operations Bucket webpage and download the article by Olan Hendrix, "Management That Leads." He writes, "Leaders must learn to manage, and managers must learn to lead.”

ECFA GOVERNANCE BLOG.  While you're thinking core values, think about your mission statement too. Read my blog posting, "Mission Statement Pop Quiz!"

WEBCAST: And join Dan Bolin and me for "7 Deadly Sins of Boards" for the Oct. 25, 2012 webcast hosted by Christian Leadership Alliance. More info.