Building a Camel when You want a Horse: Too many people on the committee

Building a Camel when you wanted a Horse

We all talk about the value and virtues of team work.  But, what happens when a bunch of people all have to be satisfied  and any decision becomes watered down to please everyone?  There is something so different about getting input from those who have expertise or a stake in the project from everyone having to agree.  Trite expressions like “too many cooks spoil the broth” come to mind when too many people are actually involved in the decision itself.

Getting input from others is so valuable – but the fewer people involved in the actual decision, the better.  This is true about a great many things, including interviewing prospective new employees.

I’ve been involved in the process of being a finalist in contract negotiations watching the difference between organizations where someone in charge makes the actual decision, and organizations where the “team” or “committee” makes the decision.  In the later case, you have to please everyone and so the less outstanding or unique or controversial you are, the better off you are.  In the first case, the person or group hired is most often the best of the companies under consideration.

Compromise always – well, maybe almost always – yields something less than what is truly desirable.  The most obvious example of course is the decision to merge black and white and get unwanted gray.  

I can’t write this without recalling the young professional couple who compromised on the selection of their new car.  She wanted a station wagon (this was years ago) so she could transport a bunch of kids to all their activities.  He wanted a big red convertible as his gift to himself for becoming a successful professional.   They could have easily afforded both.  Instead they made a compromise and bought a four door sedan and neither was happy.

So, if you want a horse – a beautiful sleek thoroughbred – get an expert who knows how to build your horse, don’t have everyone in the building involved in adding their good ideas and watch the lumps start to form.

Behavior at the Board Level
Once again I am preparing to train a non-profit board. This board, like some of the others I’ve trained, is a working board, not a governing one. That means that the members of the board are the hardest working of the volunteers and often make up the composition of the committees, sometimes chairing and sometimes serving under one of the other board members as chair.
This is sometimes a source of conflict. On one level they are all equal as board members. On the other level, they serve different roles in the different committees and sometimes have dispute about responsibilities and levels of authority.

Too, in a working board if there is staff, the staff is limited and all too often board members both defer to staff as the experts (where there expertise is really limited) and dump most of the work on staff members (where their time and resources are limited.)

Finding balance is an interesting challenge.

It’s easy to say, “let’s determine vision and align activities to that vision” but what actually happens day to day in a working board is often at a different level. Committee activities and needs are the day-to-day operations of working boards, and the needs and communication issues within these committees and between them is sometimes a problem needing intervention and resolution.

I’m planning to use exercises from my Board of Directors Training Manual and these will include process as well as content.

Content will include looking at their by-laws, their job descriptions and responsibilities, and in this case, their relationship with funding organizations. They will also have to determine their vision for the next few years.

Process will partially be about how people need to treat each other, how to make decisions for the good of the whole (rather than just friends or a select constituency) and really how to problem-solve and make decisions.

Many people on volunteer boards are lacking in this type of decision-making background, coming from workplaces where their individual roles are to implement decisions made by others.
This is a great group of hard-working people and spending the day ( a very long day is planned) with them at a retreat should be quite enjoyable.

Behavior at the Board Level
Once again I am preparing to train a non-profit board. This board, like some of the others I’ve trained, is a working board, not a governing one. That means that the members of the board are the hardest working of the volunteers and often make up the composition of the committees, sometimes chairing and sometimes serving under one of the other board members as chair.
This is sometimes a source of conflict. On one level they are all equal as board members. On the other level, they serve different roles in the different committees and sometimes have dispute about responsibilities and levels of authority.

Too, in a working board if there is staff, the staff is limited and all too often board members both defer to staff as the experts (where there expertise is really limited) and dump most of the work on staff members (where their time and resources are limited.)

Finding balance is an interesting challenge.

It’s easy to say, “let’s determine vision and align activities to that vision” but what actually happens day to day in a working board is often at a different level. Committee activities and needs are the day-to-day operations of working boards, and the needs and communication issues within these committees and between them is sometimes a problem needing intervention and resolution.

I’m planning to use exercises from my Board of Directors Training Manual and these will include process as well as content.

Content will include looking at their by-laws, their job descriptions and responsibilities, and in this case, their relationship with funding organizations. They will also have to determine their vision for the next few years.

Process will partially be about how people need to treat each other, how to make decisions for the good of the whole (rather than just friends or a select constituency) and really how to problem-solve and make decisions.

Many people on volunteer boards are lacking in this type of decision-making background, coming from workplaces where their individual roles are to implement decisions made by others.
This is a great group of hard-working people and spending the day ( a very long day is planned) with them at a retreat should be quite enjoyable.