Erasing the Board Whiteboard

Over breakfast, a trusted colleague and thought partner and I naturally chewed on some of the issues we see as especially present for the nonprofit boards we’ve worked with recently.

One train of thought that reached an identifiable destination was how boards could benefit from being more intentional about engaging members in different life stages. Layered on top of that (and sometimes masking that) is how different generations consume information, enter discussions, and organize their affairs.

Boards include early-career professionals, working parents, seasoned executives, and retirees. To me, life stage is a more important question than whether they are Gen X, Millennial, Gen Z, or Boomer (all skittishly awaiting Gen Alpha).

All of this is exacerbated by the fact that many boards wear a few scars from the pandemic and post-pandemic years. Members who have guided the organization for a decade or more sit alongside directors who joined last February. Some organizations paused recruitment, unintentionally creating a divide between longer-term and newer board members that everyone wants to bridge. And many focused on bringing in new blood and fresh faces to reenergize an understandably drained board.

Recruitment is one question. Onboarding and culture building are deeper questions that many boards are just now asking.

There is a strong foundation for building a bridge across the divide of tenure, experience, and age (and race, gender, and sexual identity while we’re at it). Passion for the mission runs deep around the board table. And everyone at the table wants the organization to thrive (especially if it is trying to figure out its new normal in the current funding environment).

For a group that meets four or five times a year and has many fiduciary duties, these chasms can be hard to cross. They may show up as under-engagement, undernourished discussions, or unclear meeting purpose or outcome. They surface:

• in how people prefer to receive information (a PDF-packed email for some, a WhatsApp chat for others);

•  in the pace members make decisions (are we talking about this AGAIN?); and

•  in assumptions about how a board “should” work (generative thought partner vs. “the boss”).

A long-time member may see a familiar process as ensuring stability. A new member may see that same process as overly bureaucratic.

There is zero value in profiling board members (“these kids nowadays” or “old people aren’t tech savvy”), but naming that there are differences in how people receive information, prefer to weigh in on issues, and juggle their many obligations can be a useful exercise.

Across all the boards I work with, board members unequivocally value and want to promote collegiality. They also want to maximize the benefit of each board member’s contributions. Most acknowledge that will take time and open conversation. Most also wait to have these conversations until they are slogging through the muck of miscommunication, misunderstanding, and disengagement.

A savvy executive director/board chair team sees individual preferences, abilities, and needs, and prioritizes conversations that build a high-functioning team. 

But where to start?

Many start with individual analysis. Who’s highly engaged? Who is hard to engage? Who terms off next year? Who can take their place?

Those questions matter. And … they also keep the conversation centered on individuals, not the big picture.

How do we rise above thinking one person at a time?

One of my favorite exercises with boards (after building a non-threatening environment for open communication, hopefully) is to “erase the whiteboard” and agree that we are building, from scratch, a board that would serve the organization well. I ask questions to get the ball rolling: 

• What do we hope the organization will grow into five years from today? What is the vision?

•  In what ways does this board need to evolve to better support that vision?

•  What skills, perspectives, relationships, and lived experiences will the work require?

•  Which communities need to be at the table?

It can be hard to “blue sky” for people who are afraid they might be “blue skying” their way right off a board they love. Agreeing to put the needs of the organization first (to not attach names to needs or strategies yet) can set the stage for the high-level conversation that needs to take place.

Assuming you have been relatively intentional about recruitment already, most of the current members will appear in the sketch of the board of the future (and many will be energized by rebuilding and refocusing the group). The exercise lifts everyone’s attention to the larger goal of excellent governance and turns a personal conversation into a shared design project. It also allows some seemingly disengaged members to acknowledge the time is right for their exit.

As the sketch takes shape, another question naturally emerges: what does service on this board require, and how does it fit into the lives of the people already here and those you hope to attract?

Around the table, you probably have:

• Recent retirees with more flexible (although still busy) days, deep professional experience, and maybe time to chair a committee.

•  Working parents balancing a demanding job, band concerts, soccer games, and other chauffeuring duties. They bring sharp insights during limited windows of time.

•  Early-career professionals who bring fresh energy and new networks, and who are still growing their philanthropic capacity.

Each brings a different mix of time, flexibility, and resources. And each can be a terrific board member … with careful planning.

Most often, the board roles and responsibilities document lays out a “one size fits all” set of requirements, rather than naming the sum total of all the board needs to accomplish and then ensuring that a group can cover all the bases, even if not evenly divided.

To make sure no one feels overtaxed and resentful, I encourage board and organizational leaders to build the job description by addressing “minimum basic requirements” and “ideal engagement” as two separate questions. 

• On what responsibilities can we be a bit more flexible to make sure we have access to a person’s expertise or networks?

•  Is there a way we can be intentional about the inevitable ebb and flow of everyone’s commitments (building in backups for everyone)?

•  At what point is someone just too busy to be on this board?

•  Is there another kind of engagement (e.g., committee membership without board membership) that enables a person to contribute until their other commitments permit deeper engagement?

Boards that name these realities openly can design expectations, meeting schedules, and committee roles scaled to different capacities. They will also be aware of when the organization is pretzeling itself more than good governance practices allow (and not be surprised when a busy person does not have enough time for this commitment).

These honest conversations need to begin during the recruitment process, not once someone is on the board and struggling to meet expectations. When an organization draws a clear picture of what board service entails, candidates can make an informed decision about whether they can fully meet the duties of the role at this stage of their lives.

And both parties (organization and candidate) understand what the other needs and can do before someone is voted onto the board.

Frank conversations at the start of the relationship build trust and set everyone up for success.

The sketch that emerges after erasing the whiteboard is a board built for the vision, with room for people at every stage of life.

If it’s time for you to think about this work, here are three places you could start:

• Try the whiteboard exercise. Bring it to your next governance committee meeting or board retreat. Sketch the board your mission needs over the next five years first (discuss individual names separately).

•  Plan for the ebb and flow. Map the busy seasons and upcoming term ends you know about and name a backup for each key role so the work keeps moving when life gets busy.

•  Write down what service truly requires – your minimum basic requirements. Create a one-page picture of the time, giving, and participation you expect, and share it early with current members and candidates alike.

And, as always, a few questions to reflect on this week:

• If you sketched your board from scratch today, what would you add to the picture?

•  How well do your board expectations reflect the real lives of the people you hope to recruit? Are you setting yourself up for disappointment?

•  What would it take for every member, at every stage of life, to engage fully in your board’s discussions and decisions? What can you do at your next meeting to change the type of conversations you have now?

If this sparked an idea or a question about your own board, I’d love to hear from you. You can email me at gary@garybagley.com or DM me on LinkedIn.

For more ideas on boards and nonprofit leadership, subscribe to my newsletter. And if a board chair, executive director, or fellow board member comes to mind as you read this, please forward it their way.