Nix the boardroom civil war

Summer is over and Christian schools are beginning again. In Edmonton, the school year will likely be more intense than usual given the report of the July 1 Christian Courier story, “Tense Elections in Edmonton,” regarding the Annual General Meeting (AGM) for the Edmonton Society for Christian Education (ESCE). It was, reportedly, a “long night of motions, objections and counter objections” that didn’t end until 2 a.m.!

Although I was not present, nor do I live and breathe the Edmonton Christian school system air, the kind of tension present at the ESCE meeting is becoming increasingly common in Christian leadership spaces. I do believe that there are some valuable Christian organizational lessons to be gleaned. These lessons are for all of us who participate in any Christian school, church or charity that marries Christian culture and conduct with systems-learning.

So let’s take a small stab at rectifying negative dynamics that minimize our Christian leadership witness. Here are just three things to do prior to any AGM: pursue transparency, review the policies and procedures, and recruit diverse nominees.

Pursue transparency

Board and staff bring a necessary spiritual transparency year-long by sharing in prayer “at all times and in all places.” There are some practical organizational pieces to transparency as well. It should be a board’s goal to make as much transparent to as many stakeholders as possible. That includes finances, policies, procedures, bylaws, minutes, reports and even things like “white papers.” It means reminding members that board meetings are generally open to their attendance and input, and then following up with members by providing hospitality to them in board meetings.

Transparency means that the phrase “we cannot share that with you” is a rare one that demands proof of legal obligation to withhold information. Believe it or not, this is a standard level of transparency. The challenge is that this demands a high level of administrative excellence and attention that a dozen volunteers in a board room might not stay on top of. It demands preparation weeks or months ahead of time, asking the question “What needs to be communicated?” as part of every agenda, and developing tools like a website where all of an organization’s relevant leadership information is kept for public consumption.

It’s work, but the plus side is that this kind of transparency changes culture by building trust. The more information a board can make available, the greater its trust is going to be as they enter into high-stakes situations like AGMs.

Tend to policies & procedures

As creeds and confessions are to the church, so are policies and procedures are to an organization. They are the thing that members will ultimately come back to at points of tension. A well understood Policy Manual (as boring as it seems) is an absolute must!

In high-trust organizations like Christian schools, charities and churches, it is typical for expectations to be unwritten. This is especially true when the organization is young and growing. But even long-standing Christian organizations are guilty of unwritten or unknown policies and procedures. Too many assumptions are made, and too much is left to “chance”.

If a board develops, stays informed and is clear about the policies and procedures in areas such as voting, nominations or “diversity” long before an election of new board members at the AGM, much of the fuel can be removed from the fire because all nominees on the ballot will likely have provided agreement to the policies of the organization beforehand. So do your organization a favour, review or upgrade your policy manual, and use portions of your board year to brush up on these policies during board training sessions! Ultimately it better helps an organization avoid argumentation because the board can point to how pre-agreed organizational policies have been robustly followed.

Recruit, recruit, recruit!

The body of Christ is filled with a diversity of gifts (1 Cor. 15). Leadership should always be on the lookout for those gifts and be more than ready to provide a robust set of nominees come board election time. For a board to come to an AGM with an exact match for the number of open board positions should be rare. Such a nomination slate assumes an affirmation of the entire group in one fell swoop. That leaves little room for error, discussion or even the Spirit’s guidance.

Instead, the board and the staff directors should make it one of their highest duties to build relationships across all the organizational stakeholders for the purpose of finding wise, responsible and diverse people who can join the leadership mission of the Christian school, church or charity. It’s not hard. There are tools that can help boards not be caught off guard when it comes time to nominate and elect. But it’s mostly a matter of intentionality outside the board meeting with the addition of a regular space on the board agenda to hear reports about how recruiting is going.

When paired with the first two steps, a plethora of nominees would be brought to an AGM under a common agreement regarding the issues that matter throughout the width and breadth of stakeholders. That’s a culture changer.

A good neighbour

Christian faith expressed organizationally is not rocket science. It is a collection of practices that helps to create a culture of faith and trust across an organization. It provides an opportunity for an AGM to become a time of celebration instead of civil war. All of these actions fit inside the principle of doing good to your neighbour. But how much more critical are these principles for those who are of the family of faith? So let’s hide nothing, be “hospitable” and seek to include all those who believe (Gal. 6:10). In so doing, our organizational publicity is magnified for reasons other than the tensions they cause.