Last month, I wrote about working with a volunteer board of directors who were having challenges functioning. This was part of my assisting a friend of mine in a volunteer consulting project for Management Advisory Services (MAS). I paraphrased an interaction between A and B that illustrated that, at least unilaterally, the “benefit of the doubt” being extended was zero. Obviously, this makes for a difficult, if not unworkable, situation. This past week, we returned to work with a larger group that included the board and other interested volunteers.
From the outset of the engagement, it was clear that much of the tension and frustration that had driven the board’s challenges arose from delays and non-responses from stakeholders, which included different levels of government. Large bureaucracies can take time to navigate, so the delays and the frustrations are understandable. Unfortunately, the delays continue, and the frustration remains. Interestingly, the focus of the frustration shifted completely.
The group had had interactions over the past few months that did not include myself or the MAS representative that I was working with, but the group dynamic was almost unrecognizable. In their book “Inside the Boardroom,” Richard Leblanc and James Gillies examine the architecture of an effective board in light of governance requirements. The governance stakes are a bit lower for this group than in many of the cases from the book; however, as subtle as the shift from “you” to “we” can be, this particular board’s effectiveness was greatly increased, in my opinion, by the development of an in-group mentality. This shift provided an external focus for frustration, which tends to bring motivation rather than tension.
I was thrilled to be able to observe this shift. Like the parent who is less aware of changes in the children they see everyday, the members of the board may not be aware of when it changed, but it certainly did. The good news is, it’s much easier to maintain an in-group dynamic than it is to win it back.
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