<![CDATA[Signature Success: Transforming people, boards, and organizations... - Blog]]>Mon, 28 Nov 2022 13:20:04 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[Taming the Information Monster - Enough Already!]]>Mon, 06 Oct 2014 19:52:44 GMThttp://sigsuccess.com/blog/taming-the-information-monster-enough-already“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

Herbert Simon, 1971
          Did you notice the date on that quote? If Mr. Simon thought there was too much information in 1971, welcome to 2014! It is all information all the time. Because we can produce information and because we can deliver more information, we do it in spades. However, while we can fit several file cabinets of information on a thumb drive, it is not that easy to cram information into a board member at a board meeting. But lord knows, we try.

            We get board books that are 100 pages or more in length. Much of it consists of reports about what committees have done and detailed financial information. Then we get to the meeting and someone tells us about what the committees have done and what the finances look like—in excruciating detail. And because there is so much information, the meetings go on forever. The concept is, we really need to be told everything and we need to be told twice, once in writing and once in the boardroom. We become like the bottomless cup of coffee restaurants used to serve. They just keep filling us up with more and more information. And we are all drowning in knowing too much about a lot that is not really that important. 

            For example, I was at a board meeting of a large non-profit organization with an operating budget north of $35 million that was operating at a loss. The board was populated with a number of high-level executives. Among the reports we received was a 15 minute presentation about a very minor activity at a community event, the same amount of time allocated to discussing the lagging finances of the organization. 

            It is time boards stood up to the information monster. Boards need to decide what information they want, how much information they need and how that information will be provided. My experience has been that typically a member of the leadership team or staff makes these information decisions. That should change. The governance committee and chairperson should establish criteria for the amount and type of information that will be delivered to the board. 

            The test is not what is available. The test is what information is needed for the board to function properly. This starts with recognition that the board needs three very different kinds of data. When the board is evaluating prior performance, it needs high-level data that can allow it to quickly assess the overall performance of the organization. If the board is focusing on a lack of performance in a particular area, it needs detailed information about the problem and possible solutions. When a board is making decisions, it needs information about alternatives. And when the board is focusing on strategic matters, it needs information that is future focused. 

            In addition to the right type of information, there needs to be enough information, but JUST enough, for the board to function effectively. Too much information is like too much salt. At some point, the information becomes counterproductive. I encourage the chairperson to act as the board’s gatekeeper, scrutinizing not only the agenda, but also the information that will be presented to board members. Boards need to design an information system that works for them. By creating an information filter, they cannot only limit the volume of information they receive; they can make sure they are reviewing the right data. Utilizing this approach, boards can finally tame the information monster.

Michael R. Vanderpool is a principal in Signature Success, LLC, a board consulting company. He is also a business attorney and an adjunct professor in the School of Management at George Mason University. He will be presenting a session titled “Beyond the Dashboard – Designing a New System to Tame the Information Monster” at BLF2014.
]]><![CDATA[Culture - The Holy Grail of Good Governance]]>Sun, 28 Sep 2014 20:54:57 GMThttp://sigsuccess.com/blog/culture-the-holy-grail-of-good-governance             For many years, boards have been on a mission to do a better job of governing. There has been no shortage of ideas as to how to make this happen. Yet, the quest continues as board members, chairmen and CEO’s look for the magic bullet of great governance. Having served on more than 20 non-profit boards over several decades, I have observed and participated in this journey. And what I have learned is that the answer is not better by-laws, more dashboard reports, or more detailed conflict of interest policies. The best way to significantly improve governance is to change the way boards think, work and act. In other words, in order to become the best possible leaders they can be, boards need to change their culture.

            Board culture drives governance. Yet, in my experience, few boards spend any time thinking about their culture and even fewer understand what a good culture looks like. As a result of having advised and served on a wide variety of boards, I have found that really great boards have cultures with four characteristics. They are strategically focused, well-trained, active and results oriented. They have what I call a STARBoard℠ culture. These boards transform themselves into a high performance team and it is this high performance culture that drives great governance. Patrick Lencioni in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team calls this teamwork “the ultimate competitive advantage both because it is so powerful and so rare.”

            What do these high performance teams look like in the boardroom? STARBoards℠ are focused on the future and ways to constantly improve the organizations they govern. The board members clearly understand their role and the business model of their entity. Board meetings are full of purpose and energy and engage the talents of each member. Most importantly, the board encourages, supports and demands real results. When these elements coalesce, the result is a highly effective team that truly provides excellent governance.

            For this reason the process of developing cultural awareness and engaging in culture altering activities should be at the top of every board’s to-do list. Cultural awareness starts with an understanding of the board’s current culture. This can be determined by using a cultural assessment tool. With this information in hand, the board must do three things: First, it must actively decide what type of culture it wants to develop: What will it look like? What values will the board see being expressed?

            Second, the board must formally commit to change. The change leaders must paint a clear picture of how the new culture will make the organization better. It is critical that the entire board commits to becoming a high performance team. Without this commitment, the transformation will fail. The CEO, Board Chair and key members of the board must lead the effort. Connor and Smith put it this way in their book Change the Culture, Change the Game. “Cultural changes must be led. You can’t delegate the initiative to human resources, organizational development or anyone else…[The Board] must maintain ownership of the process…” While I agree with this, the reality is that few board leaders are culture change agents. Boards typically need outside help with the technical aspects of change.

            Which leads us to the third leg of the journey to good governance. Boards can only change their culture if they also change their processes. Process feeds culture and culture dictates process in reinforcing loops. Only by changing their processes can boards initiate and sustain cultural change. Fortunately, the studies of emotional intelligence, social intelligence and small group dynamics provide a foundation for developing new board processes.

            Cultural awareness, a commitment to change and execution drive transformation. All are necessary if a board is to become the high performance leadership team that is a STARBoard.℠ Having created this cultural foundation, boards can truly go about the important work of good governance. With the right culture, boards can and will become the leaders our non-profit organizations need and deserve.

            Michael R. Vanderpool is a principal in Signature Success, LLC, a board consulting company. He is also a business attorney and an adjunct professor in the School of Management at George Mason University. He will be presenting a session titled “Custom Designing a Better Board Culture” at BLF2014.

 

 


]]><![CDATA[Board Diversity – Probably Not What You Are Thinking]]>Tue, 03 Jun 2014 15:47:18 GMThttp://sigsuccess.com/blog/board-diversity-probably-not-what-you-are-thinkingA hot topic these days in the boardroom discussion groups is BOARD DIVERSITY. Boards need more women. Boards need more people of color. Should boards recruit for diversity or skill sets? Type “Board Diversity” into the Google search engine and you get 172,000,000 results within 3 seconds. There is no shortage of information or commentary on board diversity, so why should I add to it?

I dare to contribute because I advocate for a type of diversity that is not generally considered in board selection—the color of one’s brain! Based on science, built for business, a “thinking style” assessment is one of the fastest and most efficient ways to enhance group effectiveness. And, heaven knows boards can use all the help they can get in becoming more effective!

Trained in Organization Development and working as a coach, I’ve been exposed to hundreds of assessments. The objective of most is to build self-awareness and awareness of others. You’re probably familiar with many personality assessments if you’ve been in the corporate world for any length of time: DISC, INSIGHTS, MBTI. There are Emotional Intelligence assessments, social intelligence assessments and a multitude of others. So why Thinking Styles?

It’s been my experience that many of the above mentioned assessments are viewed as too fluffy, airy-fairy, or not substantive by many managers, especially in the science and engineering fields. But start to discuss the way a person THINKS and the credibility of the conversation skyrockets with many business people.

In the Rhodes Thinking Intention Profile, thinking is broken down into three driving forces and color-coded: Blue Thinking – Determining what matters and coming to judgment, Red Thinking – Determining ‘what is true,’ striving to gather and understand facts, information and reality about people and Green Thinking – striving to understand what is possible, future oriented thinking.

So, how does this apply to boards and diversity, you may be wondering? Almost everyone has a dominant style of thinking – the red thinker (just the facts, ma’am) is the one in every meeting that loves to dive into the minutiae, that asks question after question about the smallest details. And if you are a blue thinker (trying to come to judgment), this red thinker has driven you crazy at every board meeting in which you have been together…unless and until you gain some understanding about the way you both think. This understanding can build greater effectiveness on any team, including a board of directors.

I remember when I was first exposed to this assessment. My mentor gave an example of a company where he was hired to help a team that had been together for two years with no discernible results. There were originally 12 people on the team when he sent them the assessment. As he reviewed the results, he noticed that 11 of the 12 were primarily green thinkers (envisioning the future and possibilities). Every meeting devolved into “we could do this,” or “we could do that,” or “why don’t we try this?” And no decisions were every made. The one lone blue thinker on the team was going crazy because no one would make a decision and quit the team before my mentor was able to work with the group. However, by helping the team understand their thinking styles and the potential issues, they were able to develop solutions and produce results!

How many board meetings have you attended where the talking goes on and one and on? Perhaps some consideration of the diversity of thinking styles is in order for your team.

]]><![CDATA[Three Common Small Business Culture Mistakes]]>Thu, 15 May 2014 12:11:35 GMThttp://sigsuccess.com/blog/three-common-small-business-culture-mistakesThe culture of an organization is often tied very closely to its success. And yet, it has been my experience that most small businesses are not very good at “that culture thing.” If you ask the owners of small businesses about the culture of their organization, many give you a blank look. Others tend to respond with the description of their personal approach: “I run my business based on good customer service.” Or, they just shrug and say, “I have good people and they work hard. We are small and don’t have a lot of time to think about things like culture. That is for big business, not us.”

Unfortunately, these small businessmen and women are failing to use a highly effective tool that can increase productivity, reduce turnover, build loyalty and actually improve customer service. While they may look at each of these issues individually, they often don’t connect the dots to realize that each of these areas can be improved by improving the culture of the organization.

In fact, the first mistake made by small business leaders is the assumption that they don’t have a culture. That is probably the reason for the blank stares. Yet, the truth is that every organization has a culture. Most often, it happens accidentally. It is not unusual that culture exists without any recognition by the owner. This results in the owner making decisions without understanding how or why that decision will resonate, be adopted or ignored.

The second culture mistake I see frequently is that the owner believes the “culture is X” while at the employee level, the “culture is Y.” The passion of a small businessperson leads him or her to believe that everybody is committed to a specific culture. It is common to get very different answers about the culture of the organization depending on whom you ask. For example, many small business people truly believe they have a culture that is supportive of their work force, and are shocked to discover the belief is often wrong.

For example, I recently spoke with a law firm partner who could not understand why so many good female attorneys left the firm. After listening for a while, I learned the firm was looking for the answer by conducting exit interviews. They got such disparate reasons; they decided there was absolutely nothing they could do about it. However, when I started probing about the culture of the firm as it related to female attorneys, the light seemed to come on. I suggested the firm needed to begin examining the organization’s culture for the answer rather than relying solely on exit interviews to answer their questions.

The third mistake is a belief that culture cannot be proactively developed or changed in a small business. This is interesting since many would argue culture is most important in small teams where there is close daily interaction over a long period of time. Interestingly, small business owners are willing to spend a lot of time and money on changing computer systems, web pages, and suppliers but seem unwilling to spend even a little time on producing the culture that could enhance their success.

How can culture be changed in a small business? Like all change, it begins with awareness, followed by a commitment to change and then undertaking the effort needed to create the desired culture. Communication is the key. Find out what your culture is by discussing it openly. If that sounds scary, ask a consultant for help. Then, develop and adopt a plan for changing the culture. Communicate it clearly and make it a priority. Finally, recognize that, as with every aspect of business, things change constantly, including culture. Keep asking and keep communicating. Small business owners need to work just as hard at cultural excellence as they do in every other aspect of their business.    
]]><![CDATA[Board Meetings - Enough Show and Tell]]>Mon, 28 Apr 2014 18:52:44 GMThttp://sigsuccess.com/blog/board-meetings-enough-show-and-tellToo many of us that serve on boards have simply become disengaged. We don’t read the material we receive. We skip meetings. And when we do attend, we rarely participate. This is pretty amazing given the fact that, in most cases, we are highly successful individuals or very conscientious. We usually come to the board with a passion to help the organization. We are flattered when we are asked to join the board and look forward to getting to know the other successful people on the board. So the natural question is, what happens to us that turns us off, that shifts us into neutral?

The answer can be any number of things. Some of us cannot say no. We overcommit and can’t find or make the time to be as active as we planned. Often, our primary business responsibilities become so overwhelming that we have to focus exclusively on our full time job. However, in many, and perhaps the majority of cases, the fault lies with the organization and not with us. There are a lot of ways an organization can shift us into neutral. Chief among these ways are the following:

·      Board meetings that are too much show and tell.

·      Giving us too much information.

·      Board meetings that never end.

We plan to write about many of these organization deficits in our blog, but let’s start with the Show and Tell issue. We all remember those days in school when our classmates stood up, one after another, and told us about something they found interesting. Usually, it wasn’t that interesting to us. But we sat there, listening to story after story. The only thing that kept us engaged was the fear that in a few minutes, we would have to do the same thing.

Board meetings are often cut from the same mold. We all get tons of reports—reports from the CEO, reports from the CFO, reports from committees, reports about future reports. It is all very exciting and interesting to those who are giving the reports. But it doesn’t take long for us to slip into a kind of “report coma.” We listen a lot, but the mind goes numb and we hear very little.

There is a better way. First, recognize that all reports are about history. Of course, we need to understand history, but primarily so that we are better prepared to deal with the future. Staff should give us the reports, in writing, before the meeting and keep them short and relevant. At the meetings, ask us to focus on questions, not reports. Encourage different viewpoints. Ask us to actually make decisions, not just accept recommendations from committees.

All of this is to say that there are solutions to boring board meetings. We join boards to make a difference. Please let us do that. If you want our time, please use it wisely. Cut back on the reports. Remember, what we really want is for you to engage our minds, not our ears. Give us information we need, not information that you find fascinating. And, most of all, please don’t show us or tell us, involve us. 

]]><![CDATA[The STARBoard℠ Bloggers]]>Mon, 14 Apr 2014 01:07:14 GMThttp://sigsuccess.com/blog/the-starboardbloggersWHY?
Why have I decided to start a blog about boards of directors and trustees? Surely, there must be a lot more interesting things to think and write about. Certainly a food blog would be a better choice. Or, what could be better than a beer blog? While those are appealing, there are already a lot of great food and beer bloggers out there (http://beerbloggersconference.org) And while, after 63 years, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about and eating food, and not enough time drinking beer, I have somehow also spent a lot of time serving on boards. During that time, I’ve come to a great admiration for those who give of their time and talents. But, I have also come to a certain level of frustration with the way boards operate.

I have served with great leaders - people with great passion and amazing talents on boards of hospitals, large philanthropic organizations, academic institutions, arts centers and chambers of commerce. And, I have learned so much from them. Like the civic pride from a small group of men and women who started a hospital and took turns making sure the doors were locked at night, the perseverance of a dedicated bunch of citizens who spent eleven years bringing a 35 million dollar opera house from a dream to a stunning reality, and the strength of volunteers who work every day to help neglected and abused kids. They have all achieved so much. And yet, throughout these successes, I have come to the nagging realization that while these organizations were truly blessed with great people, these very same people were often frustrated, sometimes bored and, occasionally, disenfranchised. It wasn’t them. It wasn’t the mission. And it wasn’t the leadership that was a big negative. It was the long, boring and unproductive meetings. It was too many hours talking about things that didn’t matter. And it was a set of processes that chewed up way too much time with too few results.

One result is that it is getting more difficult to persuade great people to serve on boards.  As Patrick Lencioni puts it, in his introduction to Jim Brown’s book, The Imperfect Board Member, “It used to be that people looked up to boards of directors. They had no real idea what boards did; still, they trusted that these surely were honorable and important groups. But now….the luster of boards has faded.”

So, I did something I should do more of. I started thinking. Even though it is not as much fun as eating and drinking beer. And that led me to wondering how we can better use the passion, time, and talents of all those extraordinary people that serve on boards. In the middle of all that thinking, I met my wife. It turns out that she is not only a foodie like me, but that she is a specialist in organization development—what a great combination in a woman! And she introduced me not only to some great tasting menus, but also to thinking styles and emotional intelligence. (Did I mention she is also really smart?)

And suddenly, the proverbial light went off. There may actually be ways to better unleash the talents and passion of those who serve on boards. By using the precepts of small group dynamics and relationships, by recognizing that the board is actually a team, an organization within and organization, I came to realize that things can be made better. That one of the most important institutions we have, boards of directors, can be improved. So, between meals and beers, I’ve decided to offer a few observations and suggestions about how to bring passion and purpose back to the boardroom. And if that turns out to be too boring, well, I can always drop back to the beer blog.


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