Where’s Waldo?...A Nominating Tale

This year I agreed to chair the nominating committee. Our charge was to get two new people – the right people – to be co-chairs.

I made a lot of phone calls. Sent a ton of emails. And met several people for coffee, for some reason all at various Pain Quotidians.

They knew I was the Nominating Chair, so the reason I was approaching them was clear from the get-go. Or, at the least, that we wanted them on the slate.

Once we’d gotten through the chit-chat stage of the meetings, I would put a list of position descriptions in front of them and I’d watch them work their way from the bottom up, trying each position on for size.

The first person I nailed told me he had an unpredictable work schedule. I countered with “Let’s not let that stop us – I’ll put in the right team behind you.” Well it turned out he actually did have some control, and in any event would know his schedule 10 days in advance. He looked at the positions, told me he’d call me in a day or two, and then texted me:

“After some thought i would like to hold the position of co-president if the slate is comprised of co positions. It seems to be do-able with my schedule if there is another person.”

Yes!

Now to find the partner. A lot more exploratory emails, demurrals, phone calls.

And then last night, I got there. The second right person looked at the position listings and stopped at treasurer: “I’ve got financial expertise,” she mused.

Then she went on to secretary: “Well I certainly have communications skills.”

And then she looked at me and said: “I am very good with people.”

I raised my eyebrows – and I waited.

“I think I’d like to be a co-chair,” she said.

I tried not to scream.

“I think that would be good,” I said calmly.

It was only after she left the restaurant that I called the departing president who had charged me with the task…and screamed into the phone “She’s going to do it!”

The moral of this story? That leadership matters. And that if you wait for the right people to volunteer out of the goodness of their hearts, their essential sanity will prevent that (or, at the least, they’re going to see if someone else would/could take on the job). But that if you go after the people you desire, with clarity about what you want and how they could get it done, you just might get what you need.

Form follows Function

A million years ago, I wrote my master’s thesis on the contra dance – an early American dance form like the Virginia Reel. I examined how the choreographic structure of the dance – long lines of participants dancing with and then past each other – actually led to the social mixing that was the dance’s earliest function…as a matrimonial matchmaker.

Basically, you had to dance with whomever came down the line – and then you moved on to the next person, again and again. It was a very democratic choreographic form, which is one reason it took root so well in Colonial America.

So why I am mentioning this? Because form follows function, too, at board meetings.

Last night I was at a board meeting that was too large to fit around one table. Terrific, you might say – that group has great attendance!

Well, yes, great attendance – but not great participation.

Board members sat at two separate tables, facing the executive director. One by one, board members would rise to deliver reports, then retreat again to their seats. Some people even had their backs to the person delivering the report, by the accident of the seating chart.

This group was doomed before it even started.

So what’s the answer, besides change the furniture?

Well, first off, change the furniture. Or change the configuration of the furniture. Or move from two hours of 1-person reports to small group breakout discussions. Or sweep the reports off the table into a consent agenda and spend the time discussing the potential long-term impact of a new program direction. Or the ins and outs of an environmental scan…

Somehow, this group needs to break free of the tyranny of the seating arrangement. To make the furniture follow the function of vigorous participatory dialogue – instead of having it predetermine a stilted, formal affair.

Time for the Trees

I was at a one-topic board meeting last night.

And, natch, the topic was fundraising.

The board deftly dispatched some legal issues, financial trend-spotting, and new program development in a half-hour – and took 5 minutes to recognize and thank the executive director for an extraordinary leadership effort in opening a new afterschool center.

Then, with 1.5 hours to go, the board settled in to the question: “What are we going to do to raise money in the next 4 months?”

And without much sidetracking – except to look back at the benefit’s results, and to look forward to potential fundraising activities for the next year – board members rolled up their sleeves.

The result? Plans for a wine-tasting with a take-home fundraising packet…a summer Hamptons house party…a general appeal to parents led by board volunteers…one-to-one calls to select major donor prospects…and the formation of an advisory council to further the organization’s fundraising reach.

Pretty fruitful for one board meeting, yes?

Now there are two elements of note in this tale. One, is the use of a dashboard for pretty substantial areas – finance, legal, new program development – which allowed the board to quickly digest the issues, see where the organization stood, and ask particular questions without having to go through the whole story.

Which gave it more time for the details.  The proverbial trees, in the forest.

Because Two, is that the dance is in the details – and in the relationship between the fundraising committee and the board as a whole.

Sure, the fundraising committee could have come up with these or similar ideas on its own, but then the board wouldn’t have owned it.

But in order not to get lost in each detail, when the discussion got too nit-picky the chair was able to relegate continuing the conversation to the committee to work out the particulars.

In other words, the board came up with an idea, took ownership over it, and then asked the committee to come up with a plan. And, board members got home in time to tuck their kids into bed.

Sounds like a win-win, yes?