The 90/10 Rule for Board Members: Cut to the Chase in your Communications

Among non-profit leaders, there is a saying:  "Board members seem to check their brains at the door."

This rude statement reflects CEO frustration with the apparent failure of one or more Board members to read the packet of information sent prior to the Board meeting.

Why does the CEO believe that a Board member has not read the packet? When the Board member asks a question at the meeting that the CEO knows is answered in the packet.

My father led two international non-profits and, when I became CEO of a NYC non-profit, told me that I needed always to remember the 80/20 rule - and that it really is the 90/10 rule.  The rule is:

Board members spend 90% of their time on their own business and lives, and 10% on your organization.

He suggested that if I remembered that, I could reduce or even eliminate my frustration with Board members.  I may live and breathe my organization, but it is completely unrealistic for me to expect a Board member to spend even half as much time on the organization.

In fact, he warned, if a Board member does start to spend a lot of time on the organization, I am in trouble.  When Board members start focusing more than 10 or 20% of their attention on a non-profit, it means they have lost confidence in the CEO.

I was delighted then to expect Board members to focus 10% of their time on our organization, and for them to rely more on me to run the organization and tell them what they really needed to know.

Communicating with Board members then is about top-level messages about:

• Successes
• Key decisions that need to be made
• Critical shifts in environment that affect the organization
• Financial status (including fundraising) 
• Key visibility
• Future opportunities or challenges
• How well the organization is fulfilling its mission

If you want to give the Board more details, do it after writing a headline that summarizes the content.  Or let them ask questions at the Board meeting to get more information.  You can always follow up with written details after the meeting, to the one or more Board members who request that information.

EXAMPLE:
Gala Raised $1.2 million, Net of $850K Exceeds Goal; All Board Members Attended.
You can add more detail, such as "Auction raised $250K, Juniors after-party attended by 250 and raised $150K. Great feedback from attendees. May need to move to larger venue next year. Separate Juniors event being planned." 

The one exception to this "top level message only" rule is that CEOs always need to call out by name each Board member who has participated in some way in furthering the organization's work.  This creates a culture of acknowledgement (which always encourages people to do more), as well as peer pressure for Board members to look good in front of the rest of the Board.

What about problems? I didn't list those under what you need to tell Board members about.  That's because I think problems are better discussed in person, at a Board meeting, and preferably after the CEO has already discussed the problem with at least the Board Chair and hopefully the Executive Committee.  Some kind of resolution or approach is needed before the entire Board is informed.  The Executive Committee is entrusted by the full Board with running the governance between meetings, so let them act in that capacity.  If the problem needs to go before the full Board (and some never do), then you want to have a headline that shows how you are solving it with the help of the Executive Committee.

IMPORTANT:  Don't mistake the length of time spent on a report for lack of interest in the organization.  People who agree to be on Boards are interested in the organization, and in being thought well of by their peers.  Also, they are not stupid.  They do understand what you tell them. And if you tell them what they need to know, they will continue to trust you.

CEOs have enough frustration with running a non-profit organization. You don't have to allow unrealistic expectations about Board attention to cause even more.

Active Listening

Active listening is one of the most valuable tools in a leader's toolbox. Active listening is when one elicits content from another person, gaining their information, skills, perspective, opinion, emotion. Active listening empowers other people, making them feel valued - as in fact they are by a leader who employs the skill of active listening.

At its best, active listening is used in a conversation or discussion, with one or more people. Questions are one key tactic used by active listeners - asking people to "say more about that" and "keep going, what's behind that?" Mirroring is another essential method, where the active listener repeats back what they heard the other person say, as in "So I hear you saying repeat back verbatim what they said. Did I get that right?" The last phrase - a question (or tactic #1) - allows the person to clarify or elaborate on what they said.

Why would you want to be an active listener? To tap the best in your team and all the people around you. Active listening conveys deep interest in the other person's ideas and thoughts. It creates a fertile ground for creativity, establishes a welcoming environment for full participation, and allows the alchemy of a whole being more than the sum of its parts to yield great solutions and amazing results.

Oh, as a leader who uses active listening, you need to accompany it by two things: reward people who step forward with recognition, visibility, credit. And always build on their ideas rather than knocking them down. Once knocked down, someone will be shy of stepping forward again.

Here are some ideas for how to develop your listening skills, from a 1983 book:

Ways to Improve Listening

· Stop talking.

· Concentrate.

· Work at listening (be active; don't expect listening to be automatic)

· Exercise your mind (don't dismiss what seems difficult

· Listen for ideas (find central themes)

· Take notes

· Hold your fire (reserve judgment until message is complete)

· Resist distractions

· Capitalize on the fact that thought is faster than speech

**From Effective Listening: Key to Your Success. Stell, Barker, and Watson. New York: Random House, 1983.

Leading Yourself

A new Executive Director of a large NYC non-profit is completely swamped, and is not taking time for coaching - even though she knows it might help her. Here's what I reminded her about:

"When you started in this position, you and those around you understandably felt like the problems now can finally be solved...and fast! My experience is, however, that anything that doesn't get resolved probably didn't really need to be resolved yet. In fact, as time goes on you'll see that more information will be revealed related to the issues - information that will make even better resolutions possible.

Remember that it is CRITICAL for you to take care of yourself so you stay centered, solid, calm, and above all don't burn out. Pace yourself. And trust that you will know what to do first. The rest can wait. As long as clients are getting service and you're not being evicted, all other deadlines are fungible."

When I'm off-center, out of balance, over-stressed - I am a terrible leader. I'm not happy and neither are the people around me. Taking care of ourselves and pacing ourselves may seem like a selfish thing to do, and it certainly does anger some people who fail to see a bigger picture. How important is that, though? It's more important to be able to calmly explain to them what you ARE doing and why, what the other priorities are, and asking them for their help in managing the priorities, expectations and work load.

Fundraising Integrity

When raising money for a non-profit, it's critical to understand why people give. And that means people who raise money for non-profits are more effective when they give money to other non-profits. Seth Godin writes about this and related topics today.

I have raised more than $100 million over my years in the non-profit industry. And I've given tens of thousands of dollars, while making a non-profit salary. It just makes sense. I thought "if I believe that non-profits do much of the world's most important work, why wouldn't I support causes I think are important?"

I was fortunate that I got to do really vital work every day, yet I could only work on that cause. If I couldn't give my time, did that mean I couldn't be part of other vital work? Of course not! It simply meant that I could be part of other causes through my wallet - exactly the way I encouraged donors and potential donors to be part of anti-hunger or workforce development or community-based HIV/AIDS services or community development efforts.

While I got to devote time and energy to these causes, many other things are important to me - the environment, women's right to choose, anti-hunger work and foodbanking throughout the US and world, anti-poverty work and advocacy, medical care and public health projects throughout the world, public elementary education, scholarships to the local Y daycare, my college and women's education, the Girl Scouts, pediatric cancer research and services, multiple sclerosis and diabetes research, gay/lesbian/bi/transgender rights, and political campaigns.

Some of these causes fit into the usual "giving triad" of one's school, a disease that affects a loved one, and a third that often addresses some community issue. Religious people add their church to the mix, while often seeing it as separate from their regular charitable giving. Other causes I support because I fundamentally believe the work is essential and government and business are not dealing it - at least not in the way I think it should be done. I give to other causes because someone asked me.

I learned long ago that the single most important thing to do when raising money is to ASK FOR THE MONEY. I also know how hard it is for people to ask for money for a charitable purpose. So when they ask me, I give. Every fundraiser needs a win once in a while to boost their spirits and help them keep going - I like to play that role.

And that gets me back to my original point: in order to effectively ask for money, it's important to give money, too. I always gave to the organizations that I led, because I believed in our work and because I felt it empowered me to ask others to join me in supporting this work. I knew what it felt like to feel part of something through a financial donation. I could speak convincingly about how rewarding it is to participate in a cause by contributing money.

I generally give to direct mail and e-mail appeals for money. I've written many highly successful fundraising letters, and I believe they are successful because I know what it takes for a letter to get ME to make a donation. I tap into the emotions that good letters elicit from me, to write a compelling appeal that welcomes others to support the vital cause. I tap into my own motivation as well as paying attention to what supporters say when asked why they give. If I'm not making my own financial contributions, how can I relate to donors? How could I be credible when I ask them to give?

If you're raising money, try making a donation to your own cause. See how you feel when you next ask someone else for money. If you raise money through the mail or internet, make a financial contribution to an organization that got you to open the envelope or e-mail. See how that changes your perception of your organization's fundraising appeals. If you hold events, buy a ticket to another organization's event. See what it's like to be a guest and what the experience offers donors. Bid on a silent auction item somewhere else, and see how that influences your own organization's auction effort. I've done all of these things and continue to do so, and it's made me a really effective fundraiser.

Walk in a donor's shoes by becoming a donor, and I believe you'll find yourself a far better fundraiser than you ever were before.

Leading Non-Profits

This blog is to offer on-line observations, coaching and assistance for non-profit leaders and about leading non-profits.

I led two major NYC non-profit organizations, one for 11 years. I worked with a coach the entire time, and credit her with a lot of my success. Working with me, non-profit leaders break through to another level of leadership, and are able to steer theirs organization with greater ease and skill to greater achievement and impact.

Executive Directors are often isolated, unable to share openly with staff or Board members as well as not well understood by well-meaning friends and family members who just don’t get what it’s like to be the CEO of a charitable enterprise. They don’t have to go it alone, though. Coaches are the non-profit Executive Director’s secret weapon in becoming ever more effective and successful.

People who want to become non-profit leaders can benefit, too, from my experiences and observations. I've learned a lot the hard way, and hope by sharing to help improve the non-profit arena and develop even better, more capable leaders.