Next week I will end my two-year term as Chair of the Board of Directors for CERIC, a charity purposed with advancing career development in Canada. I’ve run a bunch of meetings that (mostly) ended on time, co-created/co-facilitated strategic planning sessions, opened and closed Canada’s largest career development conference, and supported the growth of the organization’s big tent. Of course, this experience has resulted in strong friendships and lifelong learnings. Here are three governance lessons from serving as CERIC’s Board Chair.
Play the Infinite Game
Amidst a global pandemic that is eroding the community building potential of charities and non-profits across Canada, CERIC is exploring ways to use our financial and human capital towards and equitable and inclusive recovery. After all, career development serves the public good. As a board member, whether you’re serving charitable, public or private interests, it’s important to look beyond quarterly returns or traditional sources of funding by playing what Simon Sinek calls “The Infinite Game”.
Advancing career development is not a “finite game”, such as hockey, basketball or Settlers. It’s infinite. One of my takeaways from this experience is that I will play by the rules of the infinite game and strive to improve the quality of myself, organizational culture and the capability to produce value for our stakeholders. COVID-19 doesn’t care that CERIC has the best career development conference in Canada (some say North America), so by bringing an infinite mindset to the question of how we might convene folks virtually to honour the purpose of an in-person event will reflect the way that the organization is governed and led.
Achieve strategic alignment
In January 2019 (approximately 11 years ago in pandemic-time), I was reviewing strategic planning session documents during my flight from Vancouver to Ottawa. I also read an HBR article by Roger L. Martin, which, because it’s Harvard, focuses on board roles in publicly traded companies, but also had some insights that were very relevant to my role on a charitable board. “First, at the start of the process, the CEO should seek the board’s input on the challenges that the board thinks the strategy should address,” says Martin. “Most disconnects that I have witnessed developing between boards and CEOs are the product of the CEO’s strategy attempting to address problems other than the ones that board thinks are most critical. To avoid this, just have a conversation about them at the start.”
I remember closing our planning session with a reference to this article because it gave me the opportunity to highlight that Martin’s recommended approach was the way CERIC operated. If the governance function is over-functioning, then there’s a problem. If it’s just checking in and checking boxes, as opposed to acting as a thought-partner or even challenging the direction of an enterprise, then it’s not serving its purpose either. Like Martin said, having the conversation at the start and iterating together along the way is critical for competent governance.
Focus = priorities
I’ll be honest. I wish that I had had the discipline to focus more of our board meetings on powerful generative thinking questions, such as “how might we build the best generation of career practitioners in Canada?”. Where a board focuses its time and attention is where the organization will focus its energy and resources. An aspect of my leadership style, at least according to Jacob Morgan’s book The Future Leader, is “The Chef” – I like to take a variety of diverse ingredients and mix them together to create something that is awesome: “Chefs have to juggle many people and ingredients in the kitchen and are always exploring new ingredients. To be successful, they must balance flavors and not be afraid to try new combinations.”
During many meetings I would take a Steve Kerr approach to leading and coaching by “letting the team cook” – by this I mean that I’d follow the direction of my colleagues and focus on, for example, agenda items that required voting or ones that occupied a lot of attention. In hindsight, I wish I’d been more diligent in making sure that all items – especially ones that were deferred again and again – got attention. Whether your applying governance with your colleagues or family, be sure that everyone is clear and committed to where attention is being focused.