Does your board have a manual?

I have a nonprofit client who shifted from a governing board to an operational board structure for a year when the organization needed hands-on support during a leadership transition. They came to me after hiring a highly capable executive director and were ready to shift back to a governing structure.

Tension was in the air. Some board members had grown accustomed to supporting the day-to-day work, and others weren't sure what the board would do otherwise.

The conversations that followed replaced assumptions with agreement: what belonged to the board, what belonged to the executive director, and what kind of governing body they wanted to be going forward. Once those conversations started, things seemed much more peaceful. This team of brilliant, caring people found it easier to row in the same direction.

Over the past few years I've built governance manuals with several clients. There's no single right structure, but they tend to cover similar ground:

• Governance philosophy — what kind of governing body the board actually is, and where it's headed: operational, strategic, or somewhere in between

• Decision-making framework — who owns what, board, ED, or both together, so nobody has to guess where their authority starts and stops

• Baseline board member agreement — the essential commitments expected of every board member

• Going above and beyond — what it looks like when a board member brings more than the baseline

• Committee charters — what each committee actually exists to do, and how it's expected to operate

• Recruitment and onboarding — how new members come in, and how they get oriented

It's not the most glamorous work. But it separates a board that spends its energy guessing from one that spends its energy contributing to what is needed.

Would your team benefit from a governance manual?

Consider your answers to these questions. 

• What's the baseline we expect from every board member?

• What does going above and beyond actually look like here?

• Where does the board's authority start and stop, and where does the executive director's begin?

• Did the current board help write these expectations, or were they handed a document?

• What would change for your board if everyone already knew what "great" looked like?

If these answers aren’t documented or if you think members of your board and staff would answer these questions differently, it might be time to open up governance conversations. If you’d like an assist, I'm happy to support that work.