At some point after beginning on the Policy Governance journey, boards are in danger of falling into one or both of two traps: (1) thinking that now that they have written their policies, there is nothing worthwhile left for them to do and therefore starting to edge their way back into the CEO's domain, or (2) becoming too obsessed with the "mechanics" of using Policy Governance. While attention to the details is admirable, it should not be carried to the point that a board feels it is spending all of its energy on "doing" the model. The energy should rather be spent on setting the direction for the organization - that is what the model is intended to free the board to concentrate on. Far from having nothing "worthwhile" to do, the board is now freed of routine “administrivia” so it can concentrate on providing visionary leadership. When the board glimpses its new potential, meetings should change from mechanical, boring exercises to exciting opportunities to change a corner of the world.
Regular periodic review of the content of policies in the Governance Process, Executive Limitations and Board-CEO Relationship categories is important, yes, but not nearly as important as continual emphasis on Ends. Therefore, once your board has developed the policies in the first three categories, and done one round of content review to ensure that you are comfortable with them, you might wish to schedule regular policy review in a cycle over two to three years. Then you will be able to devote your time to better informing yourselves about Ends issues. This means having a well-designed plan to link with your "ownership." It also means having a deliberate plan for obtaining enriched board education and input related to Ends issues, since the quality of your decisions will only be as good as the quality of the information on which they are based.
This is all easy to talk about. But how does a board actually put these concepts into practice? I would suggest the following approach as one way of moving towards more proactive, Ends-focused agendas:
Develop an ownership linkage plan
Set aside a significant chunk of time at your next board meeting to simply talk about how you will develop effective linkages with your owners. I am assuming that you have already clearly identified who your "moral ownership" is. If not, that is the first step. To whom are you accountable when determining what benefits your organization should produce, who those benefits should be for, and how much they are worth (the Ends)? Who are the equivalent of your "shareholders" -not your "stakeholders."
Next, decide how you might break that ownership down into some manageable segments, so that you can effectively listen to what they have to say. Perhaps geographic areas, perhaps pre-existing groups within the ownership. Whatever approach you use, the key is to design a linkage strategy that allows you to hear from a representative selection of ownership. Most boards find that their previous attempts at ownership linkage have been largely listening to "self-selected" groups or individuals that come to them. It is highly likely that such input will not be representative.
Since the purpose of this article is not to talk about the details of ownership linkage, but rather to highlight how it ties into an overall agenda cycle, I will not elaborate further. Suffice it to say that you need to develop a plan - perhaps over several years. You may not have the resources to do everything you would like overnight. But if you develop a strategy, over time you will develop strong linkages.
When developing your linkage plan, keep in mind that a reasonable amount of elapsed time has to be allowed to collect this ownership input and consolidate it into an overall picture.
Develop questions to ask the owners
This step is really a sub-section of the overall linkage plan, but I will mention it separately because of its importance. As a board, identify specific questions to raise with the ownership when you talk with them. These questions should be future-oriented. An example of this type of question is, "If we were standing here in 2012, looking back over the last ten years, what could be different for people in your community because this organization has been here? Which of those results should occur in the next 1, 2, 5 years?" Adapt the question to personalize it for your situation. Change the time frames as appropriate for your situation. But focus on the future.
Ask specific questions related to your Ends, to find out if the owners feel these are appropriate results for the organization to achieve, and how important the results are to them. Be sure that all the owners you talk to are asked the same set of questions so that you obtain a comprehensive view of the owner perspective.
Identify your education and enrichment needs
As a board, you have been placed in a position of leadership that requires a higher standard of you. You are expected to know more about the issues than the average owner. Therefore, it is important for the board to identify its own learning needs. The board should not rely solely on the CEO to decide what it needs to learn about Ends issues.
Concurrently with developing your ownership linkage plans, also collectively identify the areas in which the board requires education to better understand the Ends issues facing you. Choose two or three key areas. Then find ways to obtain that information.
Some of it may come from asking the CEO to provide "environmental scanning" data. Other information may be researched by board members themselves, and shared with the whole board. Find ways to stretch your thinking, to push the envelope. Look into the future. Learn what may be different in your industry or business five or ten years from now. Identify how needs might be different in the future, so that the direction you set will enable your organization to "be there" for people, providing benefits appropriate to their needs. Think like Wayne Gretzky - where is the puck going to be, not where is it now?
Develop an agenda cycle
The above pieces of an overall process now need to be linked together, so that they all focus on creating an agenda for every meeting that has as its centerpiece some aspect that relates to Ends.
The easiest way to do this is to work backwards. Let's assume an annual cycle. The CEO needs to know what the Ends will be in order to develop plans to meet them, including a budget, which is simply part of the plan. That means that the board needs to affirm or amend the Ends, including the "what cost" component, at some point prior to the beginning of the budget cycle.
Continuing to work backwards, before the board can actually amend or affirm existing Ends, it needs to have had the enriched input or education. It also needs to have already collected and analyzed the implications of the ownership input. This leads to a timeline that might look something like the following:
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Meeting Date
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Agenda focus
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January
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Develop ownership linkage plan for the year.
Determine board education needs re: Ends issues for the year.
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February to April
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Obtain Owner input and discuss its implications
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May to August
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Obtain Board Education on Ends Issues (Other boards, expert sources, staff, etc.)
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September to October
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Based on all information obtained above, amend Ends or affirm existing Ends
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November
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(start here, in whatever month CEO needs the Ends in order to develop budget; work backwards to determine other dates)
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