Best Board Books #18: Humility

Picture this familiar scene. You’re at your board’s annual retreat. Beautiful setting. Good coffee. Energetic facilitator. Praying for a bold vision.

“How about this for our new vision statement?” An engaged board member (with good handwriting) proposes a new BHAG and writes it on the flipchart:

“Big HOLY Audacious Goal!

By 2025, to be the leading global ministry in discipleship
and recruit 100,000 pastors as ambassadors.”

Really?

Book #18: Humility, by Andrew Murray
(Order from Amazon)

Over the years, I’ve collected hundreds of mission statements, vision statements, and BHAGs. I’ve helped boards and senior teams craft these important written aspirations. Some are stunning in their brevity and clarity. Others are…well…amusing. 

Frequently though, the first draft tone needs a strong dose of humility. Does God really call our organization to be the “leading global movers/shakers” of anything? I think not.

Hence, I encourage your board to read this 59-page gut-check from Andrew Murray. I was reminded of its importance again in a recent board meeting—when a board member presented his “10 Minutes for Governance” snippet on "Lesson 9: Serve With Humility and Experience God’s Presence” from Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom.

He began, “Why isn’t Lesson 9 the first lesson in this book?” Ouch!

Andrew Murray (1828-1917) was a South African Dutch Reformed pastor and Christian leader who authored 240 books and devotional writings. Murray writes:

• “Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is, from the very nature of things, the first duty and the highest virtue of the creature, and the root of every virtue.”

• “The chief mark of counterfeit holiness is its lack of humility.”

• “Humility is the only soil in which the graces root; the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure.”

• “Humility is not so much a grace or virtue along with others; it is the root of all, because it alone takes the right attitude before God, and allows Him as God to do all.”

• “The truth is this: Pride may die in you, or nothing of heaven can live in you.”

• “No tree can grow except on the root from which it sprang.”

Maybe…take a page from Mt. Hebron Missionary Baptist Church. Their aspirational statement nails it: “We’re into what God is up to.” I like it!

So…share Andrew Murray’s book with your board members. But this caution: every page convicts. 

BOARD DISCUSSION: Andrew Murray writes, “…humility towards men will be the only sufficient proof that our humility before God is real; that humility has taken up its abode in us; and become our very nature; that we actually, like Christ, have made ourselves of no reputation.” What does this mean to you? What’s the balance between pride and humility when we tell our organization’s story in publications, brochures, donor letters, and ministry presentations?

MORE RESOURCES: Check out the “40 Blogs. 40 Wednesdays.” color commentaries on Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom, by Dan Busby and John Pearson, including Lesson 9, by guest blogger Reid Lehman, “Serve with Humility and Experience God’s Presence.”

Succession Planning: Hire Slower and Fire Faster

Note: This is the tenth of 11 blogs featuring practical wisdom from the new ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 4: Succession Planning. Free to ECFA members, you can download the resource and video by clicking here.

Principle No. 10 - Plan for Plan C: Your CEO Is Terminated

What do board members fear the most? They fear having to terminate a CEO on their watch. The common wisdom is “Hire slower, fire faster.” But few follow this counsel in nonprofit organizations. Even fewer in nonprofit ministries.

We want grace to abound. We serve the God of second chances (third, fourth, and fifth chances!). But the day may come—for any number of reasons—when you’ll need to terminate your CEO. And here’s the problem: there’s no board member course on “7 Principles for Exiting Your CEO.” (Who would sign up for that one?)

The board’s most important role is to ensure that they have the right CEO in place. Ram Charan emphasizes this in Owning Up: The 14 Questions Every Board Member Needs to Ask:

“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.”

When it’s time for a CEO to exit, it’s time for board members to execute their fiduciary and spiritual duty. No one, except the board, has this God-given stewardship responsibility.

BOARD DISCUSSION: “Never hire anyone you can’t fire,” warns Donald Rumsfeld in his treasure chest of wisdom, Rumsfeld's Rules. At your next board meeting—with the CEO in the room—have a frank discussion about what conditions might be present that would require the board to exit the CEO. Ensure that the discussion is healthy and helpful.

Sometimes the lack of humility in a CEO is mentioned as one of the contributing factors (or is a foundational character flaw) that causes boards to terminate a CEO. For preventative work on this issue, read the blogpost, “Serve With Humility and Experience God’s Presence,” and Patrick Lencioni’s insights in The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate the Three Essential Virtues. (Guess what? Humility is one of the three virtues.)

TO DO TODAY: Download the Facilitator Guide and inspire a board member to review the helpful checklists for “Plan C.” Remember: every CEO is an Interim CEO. 

DOWNLOAD: ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 4: Succession Planning – 11 Principles for Successful Successions: “Every CEO is an Interim CEO.” The toolbox includes 
   • Read-and-Engage Viewing Guide (20 pages) – photocopy for board members
   • Facilitator Guide (10 pages)
   • 4 short videos (4-5 minutes each)
   • Additional resources and succession planning tools

MORE RESOURCES: Follow the “40 Blogs. 40 Wednesdays.” color commentaries on Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom. Click here.

Criteria for the Nominating Committee’s Pipeline

Good news! I observed a board meeting recently—and the nominating committee invited board members to suggest names for their “prospect pipeline.” 

Bad news! I observed a board meeting recently—and the nominating committee invited board members to suggest names for their “prospect pipeline.” 

More bad news! In the absence of agreed-upon criteria, suggestions will quickly descend into the sub-basement of nominating dysfunction. “I’d like to nominate Jennifer. She’s a friend of a friend of my Cousin Eddie—and she’s wealthy.”

The solution? Before you begin “dating” a board prospect (plan on a 12-month to 36-month process), discern the criteria you’ll use to evaluate a prospect’s suitability as an effective steward of your ministry.

Begin with the “6Ds Criteria” listed in the ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 1: Recruiting Board Members—Leveraging the 4 Phases of Board Recruitment. (Click here to order from ECFA.)

The 6 Ds include: 
   • Discerning Decision-Maker
   • Demonstrated Passion
   • Documented Team Player
   • Diligent and Faithful Participant
   • Doer (walks the talk)
   • Donor (see Matthew 6:21)

As you discern your board’s unique culture, you’ll want your pipeline criteria to reflect your unique DNA. For example, at a recent board meeting (the one board I serve on), I suggested we add three “virtues” to our list of board prospect criteria.

“Humble, Hungry, and People Smart” are the three attributes described in Patrick Lencioni’s latest business fable, The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate the Three Essential Virtues. While the book is directed to teams in the workplace, the three virtues are no-brainer qualities we want in future board members.

Here are my “board edits” from Lencioni’s definitions:

HUMBLE: Great board members lack excessive ego or concerns about status. Humility is the single greatest and most indispensable attribute of being a board member. (And I’d add several more lines from Andrew Murray’s book, Humility.)

“Humility is the only soil in which the graces root; the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure.”

“Humility is not so much a grace or virtue along with others; it is the root of all, because it alone takes the right attitude before God,
and allows Him as God to do all.”

HUNGRY: Hungry board members almost never have to be pushed by the board chair to work harder because they are self-motivated and diligent.

SMART: Smart simply refers to a board member's common sense about people (other board members, the CEO, staff, volunteers, donors, and our customers/clients).

So…how about generating some good news at your next board meeting? “Our nominating committee suggests the following criteria for future board members. To recommend a candidate, please complete the ‘Board Member Suggestion Form’ to discern if that person meets our agreed-upon criteria.”

QUESTIONS: What criteria should be added when suggesting names for your board prospect pipeline? Is “humble” on your list?