Karen has been serving with a governance board for two years. It’s been a wild two years! In her first year, both senior managers quit within six months of each other, leaving the board scrambling for replacements. Members of the organization were alarmed and demoralized by the leave-taking, and the board had to ask itself: Why didn’t we see this coming? And why couldn’t we prevent it?
The organization replaced a management board with a governance model five years ago. The first year, people were euphoric about the potential of the model for addressing long-standing complaints about board members’ meddling in day-to-day operational activities. Over the next two years, however, the board began to fall back into old ways of behaving. The implications of adopting a governance model were not clear, and no specialized training was offered to move governors forward in their understanding of the model. After years of frustration, the executive team tendered its resignations.
As a new governor, Karen remembers assuming that the way the board worked was the right way. It took the resignations and subsequent repercussions to convince her that further training was required for board members. A year ago, as the incoming chairperson, she convinced the board to invest in its own development. Turning to the Institute for Nonprofit Studies at Mt. Royal College in Calgary, she joined a Peer Learning Circle (PLC) process designed especially for building capacity on boards of governance.
Creating a culture of learning and discovery on governance boards
A PLC is a facilitated exchange between people who are similar in terms of professional or volunteer affiliation, and who meet with a learning goal in mind. The institute’s process challenges governors to come to a deeper understanding of what it means to govern. In most organizations, beliefs about how to govern the board are reproduced through successive generations of board members. Changing the status quo is difficult unless a deliberate effort is made to introduce new ways of behaving.
The peer learning process uses participatory learning to achieve its goals. Field testing by the institute with this learning methodology has shown that PLCs result in the kind of higher-level learning that positions participants to develop new perspectives, and to jointly work out solutions to thorny problems. Unlike more process-oriented approaches or conventional training techniques, PLCs emphasize a combination of reflection, discussion, and shared learning or discovery. This is experiential rather than didactic or lecture-style learning, and is retained by participants long after the learning circle ceases to meet.
PLCs provide the locus for answering three key questions for your board:
- What does it mean to govern?
- What do we need to know to work in a new way?
- How will we organize ourselves to achieve this?
The best way to answer these questions is by tapping into the knowledge vested in board members. Some of this knowledge may be tacit, held so deeply by individual governors that without the structure of a PLC, it is difficult to express; it has almost certainly never been documented. Knowledge is also created through the process of reflection-discussion-discovery that is part of the participatory approach. At their most successful, PLCs create new organizational learning through joint exploration. In turn, governors are able to conceive new ways for the organization to be involved in its community and to better serve its clients.
The PLC process at work
Successful governance PLCs require, at minimum, skilled facilitation, a group of committed board governors, a regular time and place to meet, and a well-organized agenda with topics for discussion. In the PLCs conducted by the institute, there are two skilled facilitators and usually ten to twelve participants.
To function well, PLCs require coordination. An agenda and clearly crafted questions for discussion purposes ensure more effective use of time, and result in richer learning. Facilitators are responsible for organizing meetings, preparing agendas, and facilitating the participatory process. They also prepare summaries from participant observations and ensure each participant receives a summary prior to the next meeting of the PLC.
The initial meeting of a PLC is a time for explaining the process, answering participants’ questions, and putting in place ground rules for a safe, confidential environment. Participants sign off on a confidentiality agreement, the terms of which they have helped negotiate. Ground rules also ensure respectful listening and build trust. At the first meeting, a pre-survey is distributed for completion. The survey creates a benchmark against which future learning can be measured.
Subsequent meetings of the PLC examine different dimensions or competencies of governance. Extensive research on aspects of board governance has resulted in the identification of six distinct competencies that underlie board behaviour. The institute has designed worksheet guides for exploring these competencies, with one meeting allocated to each dimension. All your organization has to do is add governors willing to converse, and good facilitation.
In a typical meeting, participants gather under the able direction of the facilitators. There is a brief review of the prior session’s learning, and then the dimension under discussion is introduced. The worksheets are handed out for individual reflection and response, during which time there is silence in the group. Participants are divided into small groups for sharing of these reflections, and exploring each other’s answers to the questions on the worksheets. After about 30 to 45 minutes, the larger group reconvenes to debrief and hold further discussion. The facilitators offer final observations before bringing proceedings to a close. The whole session takes about one and a half to two hours per competency topic.
New learning from old ways of behaving
As a participant in one of the institute’s PLCs, Karen’s biggest insight was that regardless of their organizational structure or beliefs, every board faces the same problems. A common big question is, “Where does governance end and management begin?”
Through the process of attending the PLC, Karen discovered that she knew more than she realized about good governance. The three-step process of reflection, discussion and discovery brought this out. She also recognized that she had more support for implementing change within her organization than she had previously credited it for. She felt supported by her colleagues in the PLC as her board weathered the fallout from the resignation of its executive. And she has become convinced that there are better ways to do things, as opposed to one, right way.
Karen has brought her experience in the PLC back to the other board members. It’s been nine months since she attended her first PLC meeting, and in that time her board has become more successful at separating its governance and management functions. Board members are also more confident about making decisions at the committee level. Freed of detailed committee work, the board now has time at regular board meetings to work on really important matters, such as how to position the organization for the future. That future isn’t crystal clear, but the organization is making progress, a sign that the PLC has worked its magic.
Andrée Iffrig is passionate about improving communication in organizations. She is the author of “Find Your Voice at Work: The Power of Storytelling in the Workplace”, and co-author with Keith Seel, Ph.D., of “BEING A Governor: A Process for Board Development”. Visit www.find-your-voice.ca for more information.
