Finding and Picking the Best Right People for your Board

One of the most important tasks for the CEO/ED and Board of an organization to do is recruiting and selecting board members. Given the valuable support the best board members can offer an organization, board seats should be offered with great care and consideration. Not surprisingly, if you read my prior two blogs in the series, my primary advice for this task is to be intentional, not accidental, about who ends up on your board. 

Borrowing the architecture maxim, “Form follows function”, before selecting anyone to join your board you need to define the board’s purpose and function.  And that purpose and function should be a reflection of the organization's needs at its current stage of development, and the needs of the people leading and working in the organization.  Is your organization brand new? Do you need board members who can also do the work of staff yet to be hired? Is your organization growing rapidly? Do you need expertise on how to build out your team, systems and structures to support the growth? Is the CEO/ED planning to transition in the next 5 years? Do you need guidance and advice on how to manage a succession? 

And what type of board is it? Is it a fiduciary board? An advisory board? A community or alumni board? Each of these board types serve a different purpose for an organization and require different levels of commitment, capabilities, knowledge, etc. for their participants.  Compass Working Capital is an example of an organization that has a Board of Directors (their fiduciary board), a National Advisory Board, and a Boston Advisory Board.  Year Up is an example of an organization that leverages multiple leadership structures to engage who they need to meet their mission effectively. This includes a Board of Directors, Advisors, Emeritus Trustees, and their National Alumni Association Board. 

Getting clear about the type of board and the purpose of the board is also where you need to be explicit about what power and responsibility participants will have.  Boards have the power an organization gives them - intentionally or unintentionally. And the CEO/ED along with current board members and the chair are responsible for keeping this power in check and ensuring that it serves the organization - not individual board members. 

Here are some straightforward steps to take as you consider the board you want to have and how to get there. You don’t need to tackle these all at once - each step can get you closer to where you want to be.

1. Define the board’s primary purpose - a board can do many things for an organization. What are the top 3 things that you need this board to deliver on for your organization at this moment in its development? Engage your staff and current board members in the conversation to identify these.

2. What are the 3-5 most important things you need your board members to do in their role?  And what skills, capabilities, competencies do board members need to have to be able to accomplish those things?  While a lot of board matrix tools focus on the latter, I recommend you look at the intersection of these two things to assess your current board and identify new board members.

3. Draft a board job description. Don’t make the mistake of treating a board role like a typical volunteer role. While the role is voluntary in the sense that board members don’t typically get paid and they participate on their own volition, you have expectations you need board members to fill.  And they need to clearly understand those and commit to fulfilling them.  They also need to understand how you will hold them accountable in their role.  You can, and should,  “fire” a board member if they are not adequately doing their “job” for the organization.

4. The CEO/ED and current board members are together responsible for identifying potential board members. A CEO/ED who abdicates this responsibility to their board is failing at their job of leading the organization to fulfill its mission.  And a board who abdicates this responsibility to the CEO/ED is failing its Duty of Care. 

5. Board members can be found in lots of different places. While the board and the CEO/ED have networks they can draw on, those networks may be quite removed from the organization itself.  As a result, they may recruit board members who they think are great, but who have limited knowledge or experience in the work of the organization or with the stakeholders it serves.  I encourage leaders to broaden their view of where to find board candidates.  Consider that an organization’s staff and the community it serves can be some of the best resources for board candidates. They know the work, they know the organization. 

6. Build an intentional onboarding and orientation process for all board members. If you’ve never done this before, insist that all board members, new and old, participate.  Staff should also participate.  This will create a relationship foundation for the board and the staff, give them a chance to connect with each other and develop trust with each other.  I also suggest that you find a way to repeat this kind of opportunity, even if just in a small way (staff.board reception before the board meeting, dinner with the board, etc.) to sustain relationships over time.

If you are interested in continuing this conversation about governance and the board, please put some time on my calendar.  I hope this series has been helpful to you. Thank you for reading. Sit with it for a minute and let me know what you think.