Boards, are you truth seeking, or weight throwing?
When you are the consultant working on developing strategy for an organisation and the CEO says, ‘please take out the negative comments received through the staff consultation from the report prepared for the Board’ – you know the system is broken.
Depending on your perspective, you might say that the CEO isn’t doing their job properly, however, this request is the result of a set of circumstances that have meant the CEO doesn’t feel like they can deliver the truth, and then more importantly ask for support to address the issues at hand.
This goes on and on until unresolved issues bubble to the top and a crisis ensues or, it surfaces when a new CEO starts. They go around the organisation and ‘uncover’ things that were seemingly hidden from the Board, such as unhappy staff, dwindling membership support, poor relations with affiliate organisations and antiquated technology and systems that the staff have been crying out to be fixed. The Board think, thank goodness we got rid of/CEO left, and we have a new person to take the organisation ‘forward’ as we have to get to the ‘next level’.
Have I just described your organisation?
Board members, how much of this is your responsibility? Have you gone out of your way to spend time with the organisation? Questioned what is really happening? Admitted openly when you don’t understand an issue, or when an organisational challenge is out of your realm of experience? Or are you just focused on putting pressure on the CEO to deliver the KPIs?
How did we get here? This wasn’t the intention of anyone.
From my experience, especially with Associations, where the Board members are there on a voluntary basis, good news stories are just easier to hear, because everyone is busy and we all know that issues take precious time; time people don’t have to spare.
Organisations have unique cultures, and often in professional associations they take on the culture of the profession they represent, mainly because the Board is made up of professionals who have been members and then take on more engaged roles. That makes them great at their specific career, but not at being a Board member. So they can comment wholeheartedly about the external industry factors impacting on advocacy, policy and government relations, but not so much on issues such as internal communication, marketing, HR and people management, culture management and technology.
I feel the KPI culture has to take some blame for this situation. The introduction of KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators, are an omnipresent aspect of management. They focus the attention on the strategic objectives of the organisation and enable people to pinpoint their efforts into bringing them to life. However, an organisation also exists outside the KPI framework, and when there is no room to talk about that, bring that to the Board table or even be concerned with non-KPI discussions, then we have a situation where the Board aren’t kept up to date or made aware of what is going on. In this light what happens is, in order to get a few ticks on the actions determined, the CEO will talk about all the things that the team have done towards the achievement of KPIs and none of the issues that could impact that KPI being railroaded.
The conversations around Board tables need to shift in order to allow CEOs and Senior Management the room to say, ‘don’t fire me, but everything isn’t as rosey as we’d like it to be. Here is what I think is the problem, can we work together to work on this issue?’ And that sometimes take courage and resilience that is hard to find after a long tough day. But as CEOs we have to be accountable for ensuring Boards know and understand the real issues at hand, even when it doesn’t project us in the best light. It is our responsibility to do so, for the benefit of the entire community surrounding your organisation.
Every organisation is different, however here are some of the conversations I would love Boards to be having more often:
‘How do the team really feel about the introduction of the new technology/procedure/policy/thing?’
‘What else can we do to help you, the CEO, with managing the organisation?’
‘I don’t know about XXX, should we look at getting some external help with that?’
‘What is our reputation in the industry today?’
‘What are we doing to ensure we are an attractive employer to the new generation?
And finally, ‘We’d rather know the truth.’
Are you asking for what you want to hear? Or the truth?
Does your Board need a shake up? Zadro specialises in internal communications and developing organsiational culture plans. Find out more at zadroagency.com.au
