How Would Your Board Invest One Extra Hour?

Unless you live in Arizona or Hawaii, you lost an hour last Sunday when your iPhone automatically stole 60 minutes for Daylight Savings Time. 

So for these last four blurry mornings, I’ve been wondering—what could I have done with that lost hour? Leverage it? Invest it? Squander it? 

So…here’s my governance question today:

If you had one extra hour
at your next board meeting,
how would you use it?

One size (one answer) doesn’t fit all. Taking cues from the four social styles, here’s how your board members might respond:

[  ] Analyticals might leverage the hour by slowing down and asking for more information—before rushing into any action items. “No decision is better than the wrong decision.”

[  ] Drivers, if they don’t already have the gavel, would ask for the floor and—in less than 60 minutes—would clean up any low-hanging action items. “Any decision is better than no decision.”

[  ] Amiables (and don’t we love the Amiables on our boards?) might suggest that this gift of an extra hour be used to enrich our relationships—get to know each other better! “Oh! So you approach decision-making this way because you were the youngest of five children—and you never saw your parents disagree? Interesting!”

[  ] Expressives (those are the two board members in the hallway on their cell phones) might ask about the annual awards program. Are current board members eligible for awards? How about a “Board Member of the Decade” dinner? And she’s available if you need an emcee.

Time lost is time lost. Heed Ephesians 5:15-16 (NASB), “Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.”

Coach John Wooden was a master at mentoring his teams during his 40-year coaching career.  From 1948 to 1975, his UCLA basketball teams won 10 NCAA national championships, including seven in a row! ESPN named him the greatest coach of the 20th Century.  Here’s Coach Wooden on time:

“Time lost is time lost.  It’s gone forever. Some people tell themselves that they will work twice as hard tomorrow to make up for what they did not do today. People should always do their best.  If they can work twice as hard tomorrow, then they should have also worked twice as hard today. That would have been their best. Catching up leaves no room for them to do their best tomorrow. People with the philosophy of putting off and then working twice as hard cheat themselves.” (Coach Wooden One-on-One: Inspiring Conversations on Purpose, Passion and the Pursuit of Success, by John Wooden and Jay Carty)

QUESTIONS: Time is a precious commodity and board meeting time, perhaps, is even more precious. How would your board redeem the time and use an extra hour at your next meeting? Should you add an extra hour?

The 20% Board Member

During my years at Willow Creek Community Church and Willow Creek Association, I recall that both elders and church board members practiced a very high level of commitment to excellence. And for many, excellence could only be accomplished with a high commitment of time.

One elder intentionally limited her “day job” work week to four days, so she could have elder office hours at the church one day a week. Imagine that! She voluntarily gave up 20 percent of her salary so she could serve Christ and the church a full day every week (plus elder meetings and much more).

I was contrasting that commitment to a ministry board I heard about recently.  With just two formal meetings a year, and very minimal time in those meetings, I wondered how the full expression of Christ-centered governance could enfold in just two hours every six months.

Fortunately, the Bible (and ECFA) does not define how many hours are required for stewards to pray, discern, conduct due diligence, affirm the vision, encourage and evaluate the top leader, and all the other essentials of good governance. 

But…how long should a board meeting be? Two hours? Four, six or eight hours? A weekend? I asked this question in a blog in 2013, “No Bad Board Meeting Is Too Short!” I quoted Roger Ebert, the movie critic who died that year, who famously said, “No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough.” Ditto our board meetings! (That blog, by the way, was the most read blog in the last three years--by far!)

I mentioned to the CEO of the “short board meetings” mentality that I could not, in good faith, join a board that met so infrequently and so briefly. While he assured me the board members interact often outside of meetings, I wasn’t sold.

One ingredient of healthy marriages—and all relationships—is time. Board relationships are no exception. Read the Harvard Business Review article, “What Makes Great Boards Great.” And take a cue from Gen. McChrystal, who recommends whitewater rafting as a team-building (or board-building) event. He’s serious!

How often have you heard: “Eduardo, I hope you’ll say yes to serving on our board. It won’t take much of your time.”

Contrast that with this poignant thought from Jeremy Taylor, the 17th century cleric in the Church of England:  

“God hath given to man a short time here upon earth,
and yet upon this short time eternity depends.”

Or this from John Wesley:

 “I judge all things only by the price they shall gain in eternity.”

I prefer board colleagues that take their steward roles quite seriously; devote generous amounts of prayer time together, and as long as I’m preaching here—turn their cell phones off during meetings.

QUESTION: With eternity in mind, how will you inspire your board members to discern the appropriate amount of time to invest in God’s work, as stewards of the ministry?