The Canary In The Coal Mine

Last week we were sitting with a group of board members, would-be board members, and nonprofit staff…whose boards don’t work.

(Could that be any nonprofit? Nah… But I digress.)

We were talking about what happens when an individual joins a board and is enthusiastic, responsive, ready to roll up their sleeves – and then finds there’s “something rotten in the state of Denmark.”

Or not rotten, perhaps, just flaccid.

Sometimes that new member’s energy and vitality points up something you knew but were pushing to the back of your mind – that there’s something wrong here, and that that something has to get fixed.

But without being invited on with that specific request – to be a change agent – the new board member sits there bursting with energy…puzzled.

“Where’s everyone else at this table?” she wonders. “How come they look as pale as ghosts?”

And the moral is – it’s better to be honest. To explain to a board candidate that you are embarking on a board transformation, that they’re one of the first steps in that process (subtext: and that’s why they’re so important to the organization!); and that they have to be patient, purposeful, and determined – to create a new board climate.

Otherwise you end up with a canary in a coal mine – someone who points out how toxic the air is, and who ends up dead in their cage from breathing the atmosphere without protection.

Not to be melodramatic, or anything…