Your Board’s ONE Thing

In their bestselling book, The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results, Gary Keller and Jay Papasan have a question that could change your board’s effectiveness—immediately. They ask:

"What's the ONE Thing

you can do this week such that by doing it

everything else would be easier or unnecessary?"

In my last blog, I listed statements from 13 leadership gurus about “The Leader’s ONE Thing”—and noted that 13 different ideas can’t all be right.

So today, we’re simplifying the question: “What’s your board’s ONE thing at your next meeting?”

If I were a guest at your next board meeting, I’d create four teams and send them to four flip charts in the four corners of the boardroom with one simple assignment: answer the ONE thing question. You’d have 18 minutes for prayer, discernment and agreement—and three minutes for each group to report back. (I’d also ask three people to give mini-reviews of this powerful book.)

QUESTION: “What's the ONE Thing you can do in this meeting such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary?"

The answers, I’m guessing, would cover the waterfront:

• “Schedule a day of prayer to discern God’s voice on the XYZ Initiative.”

• “Rather than continuing to committee-the-project-to-death, meet again in two weeks and let’s finalize the Board Policies Manual—so all of our policies are in one place and we can easily edit/adjust our policies at every future board meeting.”

• “In the next seven days, let’s commit to the online board self-assessment process that our board coach asked us to do a year ago!”

• “Finally, finally agree on criteria for future board members—and begin the process of ‘dating a board prospect’ before inviting anyone onto the board.”

• “Let’s get serious about a rolling three-year strategic plan that moves us from surviving to thriving—and agreeing on the board’s role in this process.”

Most boards will have different “ONE thing” recommendations—because all boards (and board cultures) are unique. A one-size solution doesn’t fit all. That’s why you must ask the question at every board meeting.

The authors suggest that one of the four thieves of productivity is the “inability to say ‘no’.” Keller writes, “Someone once told me that one ‘yes’ must be defended over time by 1,000 ‘no’s’.”

Great boards know the importance of the ONE thing and saying “no” is foundational to the ONE thing. You must say “no” to:
   • limping along without written policies
   • bringing new members onto the board without appropriate due diligence
   • stewarding a Christ-centered ministry without Christ-centered board practices
   • assessing CEO performance without self-assessing the board’s performance.

Add your list here!

QUESTION: So…“What’s your board’s ONE Thing?”

Your Leader’s ONE Thing

I’ve started collecting the wise and pithy proverbs from management and leadership gurus who pontificate on “The Number One Thing/Most Important Task of a Leader.” They’re all good—but can they all be the most important?  Examples:

Max De Pree: “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Life's most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?"

Peter Drucker to Bob Buford: “The first job is to make top management effective.”

Jim Collins: “The first task for leaders is to create an environment and a process that enable people to safely identify and eliminate misalignments.”

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld: “Perhaps the most common—and the most dangerous—failure is the tendency of leaders at all levels to overlook opportunities for feedback.”

Drucker (again): “The most important do is to build the organization around information and communication instead of around hierarchy.”

Frances Hesselbein: “Leadership in these times means scanning the environment for those few trends that will have the greatest impact on the enterprise.”

Drucker (again): “The task of the nonprofit leader is to try to convert the organization’s mission statement into specifics.”

Jeffrey A. Krames: “Getting high energy people into the company is only the first step—the organizational equivalent of setting the table. The next, and bigger, task is to create an organization that converts energy into results.”

Deepak Sethi: “The toughest thing for leaders is letting go of something that has served them well for a long time.”

Ruth Haley Barton: “It is also important to involve the right people. One very common leadership mistake is to think that we can take a group of undiscerning individuals and expect them to show up in a leadership setting and all of a sudden become discerning!”

Robert L. Daft: “Leadership is often described as getting the best out of other people, but the first job of leadership is often getting the best out of yourself.”

Stephen R. Covey: “Both management and leadership are vital and either one without the other is insufficient.”

Ram Charan: “There is nothing more important for a CEO than having the right strategy and right choice of goals, and for the board, the right strategy is second only to having the right CEO.”

King Solomon: "There is one thing worse than a fool, and that is a man who is conceited." (Proverbs 26:12, TLB)

King David: "This one thing I know: God is for me!" (Psalms 56:9, TLB)

What are your favorite “one things?” Stay tuned for my favorite “one thing” book in my next blog.

QUESTION: At your next board meeting, what discerning counsel should your board give your CEO regarding his or her “Most Important Thing” this year?