Best Board Books #9: Called to Serve: Creating and Nurturing the Effective Volunteer Board

Max De Pree writes, “There is a reason why this is a small book. We want it to be useful, but not a burden.” So…here’s my ninth nominee in this “best board books” series.

Book #9: 
Called to Serve: Creating and Nurturing the Effective Volunteer Board, by Max De Pree (Order from Amazon)

I tilt towards books that lean towards the contrarian quadrant. Example: former USC President Steven Sample's book, The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership. Before buying a book, he prefers a five-minute conversation with someone who has already read it.

So when I had a five-minute conversation with consultant and author Dave Coleman about Max De Pree’s 91-page contrarian gem, it fed my board governance book-addicted soul. I love this book and the title: Called to Serve: Creating and Nurturing the Effective Volunteer Board.

Contrarian Max De Pree (1924-2017) writes:
   • “We believe good people need reminders and an occasional nudge, not a sermon.”
   • “A good board will measure the appropriate inputs as well as the outputs. Failure to measure what matters damages our future.”
   • “My friend Jim Beré…once told me that he would serve only on boards that had hard-working executive committees.”

Commenting on board committees, De Pree notes the story of the English visitor who watched his first American football game and observed, “The game combines the two worst elements of American culture—violence and committee meetings.”

Rather than penning a 300-page snoozer, De Pree crafts a coaching conversation (a series of letters) with a young leader and his first CEO/board relationship. It’s easy reading and the short epistles are extraordinary.

Board service, writes De Pree, should be “demanding in the best sense of the word.” He lists three other characteristics of great boards:
   • Lively
   • Effective
   • Fun to serve on

CEOs will appreciate every page: “…the chief responsibility of boards is to be effective on behalf of the organization.” He adds, “Effective boards, in a nutshell: 
   • remember the long view,
   • remember that the president and staff are human,
   • and do the work of the board…”
   • Plus this: “Most of the work of the board takes place through the implementation of an agenda.”

More contrarian pokes-in-the-ribs:
   • “Many high-priced consultants will tell you to have the shortest possible mission statement. I don’t happen to think that is such a great idea.”
   • “I feel that the closer an organization comes to being defined as a movement, the closer it will come to fulfilling its potential.”
   • “I’m a great believer that management should be invited into the board’s world but that the board should not go into management’s area.”
   • “The chairperson should not permit anyone to read to the board.”

Max De Pree served as board chair of Fuller Seminary—and get this—the seminary honored him with the establishment of the Max De Pree Center for Leadership in 1996. His day job was with Herman Miller, the office furniture company, where he served as president from 1980 to 1987 (and as a board member until 1995). His book, Leadership Is an Art, has sold more than 800,000 copies. (See also Leading Without Power: Finding Hope in Serving Community.)
Effective boards do very good planning, says De Pree. He lists three planning questions and then suggests who must be involved in the planning. “…some people need to be involved, to be blunt, because they are going to pay the bill.”

He balances the CFO’s involvement in planning with this: “Planning by the board ought always to include the chief financial officer, a bringer of necessary reality to the process. Of course, the chief financial officer should never have a role that stymies the vision. Some realities have priority over numbers.”

Oh, my—I could write another 30 blogs on his contrarian coaching! (In fact—I did!) See the index to the 30-blog series here.

More Wisdom:
   • “Loyalty by itself is never sufficient. You always have to link loyalty and competence.”
   • “When an organization demands true leadership and the results justify the time and energy, good boards respond with gusto.”
   • “Another crime, it seems to me, is to give really good people poor leadership.”

Trust me—this book will not disappoint. All 91 pages are packed with power. Perfect snippets for your “10 Minutes for Governance” segment at every board meeting. (You do that, right?) 

BOARD DISCUSSION: De Pree recommends that “Key proposals and issues like building programs or fund drives should always come to the board through its committees at least twice.” Think back for three years—has this been your practice?

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 31, “Cut the Cord! Invite Board Members to Exit When They Don’t Live Your Values.”

Best Board Books #7 - The Nonprofit Board Answer Book

You have questions—here are 85 answers from another must-have governance book in this series on the best board books.

Book #7: The Nonprofit Board Answer Book: A Practical Guide for Board Members and Chief Executives (3rd Edition), published by BoardSource  (Order from Amazon)

Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, said, “My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.”

“Behind every good answer lies a good question,” says BoardSource in the introduction to the third edition of this jam-packed resource. Now with 85 questions and answers, it’s a must-have tool for both new and veteran board members as you inspire them to be life-long governance learners. Suggestion: bring it to every board meeting—and pass it around the room. It will be irresistible to your board members in their search for proof texts!

When you scan the table of contents, dozens of relevant questions will jump off the page—and tempt you to read the crisp, well-written two- to four-page answers. Examples:

Part One: Basic Board Functions
1. What are the basic responsibilities of a nonprofit board? 
5. What is the board’s role in strategic planning?
7. What is the board’s role in fundraising?
9. How does the board avoid the extremes of “rubber stamping” and micromanaging?

Part Two: Board Structure
13. What is the best size for our board?
19. What is the role of the board chair? 
21. How should we select our board officers?

Part Three: Board Member Selection and Development
23. How can we recruit active, involved board members?
25. What is the chief executive’s role in board recruitment?
32. What should we do about uninvolved board members?

Part Four: Board and Committee Meetings
41. How can we encourage debate while promoting civility in the boardroom?
42. What is the purpose of a board retreat?
44. How should staff members participate in board and committee meetings?

Part Five: The Board’s Role as a Fiduciary
52. What are the signs of financial distress in an organization?
54. What policies and practices should we adopt to manage conflicts of interest? 
57. Why should every board member make an annual monetary contribution?
58. How can we develop board members’ fundraising skills?
59. How can we generate revenue beyond fundraising?

Part Six: Board-Staff Relations
64. What is the ideal relationship between the board chair and the chief executive?
67. How should we evaluate the chief executive?
68. How do we set fair compensation for the chief executive and the staff?
70. What is the board’s role in relation to the staff?
72. How can we facilitate the end of a chief executive’s employment?

Part Seven: Organizational Change
75. What is the typical lifecycle for a nonprofit organization?
76. How do we ensure that the organization thrives after the founders depart? 

The first edition, written by Robert Andringa and Ted Engstrom (1916-2006), built the reliable rails for the second and third editions. This is an excellent resource.

BOARD DISCUSSION: Question 77 asks, “When should an organization consider revising its mission statement?” (Not this year! We just spent $5,000 framing it on the reception wall!) BoardSource recommends you review the mission statement’s relevance annually and “discuss whether new laws, dramatic economic or environmental shifts, other organizations entering the picture, or other changes may justify a revision.” When is the last time we have seriously reviewed our mission statement?

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 39, “Invest ’10 Minutes for Governance’ in Every Board Meeting.” 

Fist Fights Over Mission Statements!

Recently a CEO asked me to resolve a verbal fist fight over the ministry’s mission statement. In their strategic planning process, some members of the management team voiced a strong difference of opinions. I assured this in-the-trenches leader that this was a good thing! 

Patrick Lencioni has noted that the reason most meetings (including board meetings, I’ll add) are so boring is because there is not enough conflict. For more on this, read his chapter, “The Centrality of Great Meetings” in The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business. Lencioni calls bad meetings “the birthplace of unhealthy organizations.”

But back to the question about mission statements. I encouraged this CEO to evaluate the oomph and the caliber of the mission statement several ways:

• At least annually, when the board assesses organizational effectiveness and ministry results, does the mission statement give guidance for evaluating the organization’s trajectory? What ministry results should be measured? If the mission statement is too lofty, it serves no one. (However, vision statements—what an organization strives to be—are often lofty.) Ultimately, the board, not the management team, must land on a mission statement.

• As Tami Heim, president and CEO of Christian Leadership Alliance asked recently—does the mission engage you emotionally? She writes:

“In a 2013 interview I conducted with Wess Stafford, former CEO of Compassion International, we talked about Compassion’s mission. Wess explained,

‘When you share your mission and it doesn’t move you to tears in the first 90 seconds, you need to get out of the way. You need to resign. Yes resign, so the organization can find a leader who has a passion worthy of the call.’”

First, of course, you need a board-affirmed mission statement that grabs you by the throat. When sorted out through a robust spiritual discernment process, the mission statements of Christ-centered organizations often ooze with a sense of the Holy!

Bottom line: we waste a lot of staff time and board time on meaningless strategic planning busy work. But—reshaping the mission statement, if needed, is a high priority endeavor. If you don’t get it right, you’ll never have high commitment on anything else. 

QUESTION: Does your ministry’s mission statement guide the core decisions of your board? Do all board members know the mission statement by memory?