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What Makes a Good Board?
Healthy dissent is ok.
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I recently spent a fitful night unable to sleep because of the strong disagreement I knew we would be facing at the next day's board meeting. A peacemaker by nature, I dread situations of conflict. Like many of us in ministry, I'm into conciliation, not confrontation. Why can't we all just get along? Let's find the win/win. Surely we can work something out so we can all be unified. This wasn't a case of misunderstanding. This was a case of board members clearly understanding the issues, but disagreeing on how to proceed. Sure enough, the next morning saw a sharply divided board. Arguments were made, statements were countered. No one was attacked personally, but personal values and sensitivities clearly differed. When it came time to make a decision, the vote showed a serious division of the house. I drove home somewhat discouraged—until I read the article in the September 2002 Harvard Business Review on "What Makes a Great Board Great." Suddenly the situation was seen in an entirely different light. The writer, Jeffery A. Sonnenfeld, looked at the recent meltdowns of corporate giants Enron, Tyco, and WorldCom, which have focused intense scrutiny on boards. Were those directors asleep at the switch? Or too closely tied to a corrupt management team? Or simply incompetent? "It seems inconceivable that business disasters of such magnitude could happen without gross or even criminal negligence on the part of board members," writes Sonnenfeld. He analyzes the makeup and the practices of the boards of these failed companies, and concludes, "A close examination of those boards reveals no broad pattern of incompetence or corruption. In fact, the boards followed most of the accepted standards of board operations." Sonnenfeld then explores the differences between boards that fail and those that keep their organization healthy. He lists a number of factors that did NOT make a difference, including: regular meeting attendance, equity involvement, board members' skills and age, board size and committees, and independence. While these factors are important, all were in place in the board structure of the titanic failures. What, then, is the secret to boards successfully guiding their organizations away from hidden disasters? "What distinguishes exemplary boards," writes Sonnenfield, "is that they are robust, effective social systems." He lists five elements. Let me highlight the two that are most germane to church boards.
Much has been written about the importance of "consensus building" in church life, and it's an important goal. But too many boards short circuit the process. Differences are avoided. Disagreement is discouraged. Dissent is cut off. |             |
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