eNewsletter: Winter 2006

   In This Issue:

1. New Non-Profit Leaders
2. Letting Go and Letting Come: New Directions for NPSLP
3. Sharing the Executive Director Role
4. The Upside and Downside of Board-Staff E-Mail
5. Best Ever Board Self-Evaluation Questionnaire
6. New Course on Transformative Communication
7. New Program Resources

Dalhousie University is pleased to announce the following persons as graduates of the Non-Profit Sector Leadership Program at Dalhousie University for 2004-2005.

In completing the program requirements they and their organizations have demonstrated a significant commitment to organizational excellence as part of Canada's voluntary sector.

• Laurie Cook - Voluntary Sector Consultants
• Lauren Copeland - Halifax Military Family Resource Centre
• Merek Jagielski - Metropolitan Immigrant Settlement Association
• Wynn Wilson - Our Neighbourhood Living Society

Congratulations to all. These four join an impressive list of over sixty alumni of the Program.

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The Non-Profit Sector Leadership Program is presently exploring how Dalhousie University in general, and the College of Continuing Education in particular, can better support and facilitate voluntary sector learning. We are currently having a wide ranging series of conversations with community organizations and university colleagues.

While new opportunities have not been fully identified, the areas of transformative leadership, community dialogue, and collaborative problem-solving are and will continue to be major themes in our work as educators. Our involvement in the National Learning Initiative for the Voluntary Sector (including the Leadership Connext program at Tatamagouche Centre last year) and in the Dalhousie Negotiation and Conflict Management Program, provide us with exciting territory for research, teaching and new learning. Opportunities in these and other areas where we can contribute to building a just and caring community will require us to work in close partnership with others.

The College of Continuing Education has decided to phase out, over the next two years, the Certificate in Non-Profit Sector Management, our core program of eight, four-day courses for executive directors. While this program has been in existence for more than a decade, and has undergone a number of curriculum and format improvements, declining enrolment -especially from organizations based in the Halifax area - suggest that it has served it purpose. This approach to learning also requires time and financial commitments that few non-profit executives or their organizations are able to make in today's environment.

The Certificate program has graduated more than sixty individuals committed to leadership in the voluntary sector. Those currently enrolled who wish to complete the program have been offered a variety of options to do so between now and the Spring of 2007.

The College will continue to offer resources, workshops and coaching services to support stronger board governance practices in the voluntary sector. Already one of the leading programs in Canada, we are paying increasing attention to how the volunteer board experience of citizens can be improved. Board development, we believe, requires increasing attention to external accountability, interpersonal communication, team building and working with conflict.

We welcome interest in our remaining certificate-level courses from anyone interested in them as individual offerings. We also invite your participation in the larger conversation with which we are engaged.

Note: We credit Otto Scharmer's work on Presencing for the "letting go" and "letting come" concepts of change.

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The voluntary sector has a long tradition experimenting with new models of governance and management. This includes a strong interest in non-hierarchical structures and consensus processes.

The board-executive director structure has been adopted by most non-profit organizations in North America but it is not the only model. Voluntary organizations thinking about hiring a senior staff person for the first time, or existing organizations considering changing their leadership model, might want to consider other approaches.

The first step is to think about "function" not form. What are the leadership tasks required? What has to be done to ensure the organization keeps it eye on the big picture and its long term goals? What then are the specific tasks, the means to the ends? Is it useful to separate planning tasks from operational tasks? Will accountability for some functions be shared?

A search of the WWW turned up two items on alternative leadership models. The first is an article by Jim Campbell "Co-Directing - A Leadership "Pas de Deux" [PDF]. It was published in the July 1999 edition of Front & Centre, from the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy and it later appeared on the Charity Village web site. It was one in a series of articles written by Jim Campbell and Sherry Ferronato, who were Co-Directors of a successfully merged organization, Big Sisters and Big Brothers of Calgary and Area. The series, which explored current issues in the management of non-profit organizations, was written under the auspices of the Muttart foundation Fellowships and all the articles are still available on the Foundation's web site.

Jim Campbell, who sent us his "Co-Directing" article, is now Manager, Western Regional Office, Queen's University (campj@post.queensu.ca). Sherry Ferronato is a proud mom to twin boys and a consultant to non-profit groups in Western Canada and elsewhere (exanimo@telusplanet.net).

The other item we found was from an organization, the Burnaby Association for Community Inclusion. It currently operates with a "co-executive staff team" who have responsibilities in three functional areas, one of which is shared. The team overview described on their web site may also be of interest. The fact that their management approach is on their web site is itself worthy of praise.

We invite readers to share their experiences with alternative models as well as information and case studies they may be aware about from other sources. Our thanks to Jim Campbell.

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E-mail communication had been a great boon to many non-profits in facilitating easier board and board-staff communication. Being connected electronically has made it easier to distribute the minutes of previous board meetings, meeting agenda and reports. Some enterprising non-profit even have a password protected section on their web sites for board members where various items important to governance can be posted.

Unfortunately we have seen organizations fall victim to the indiscriminate use of e-mail communication between board and staff, and within the board itself. In difficult situations hastily written or inappropriately forwarded e-mails can fuel existing conflict.

We suggest a few guidelines for board-staff e-mail communication. They are:

1. Executive directors should communicate by e-mail with all board members, not a subset or committee, unless otherwise decided.
2. Board members and executive directors should not forward e-mails received without the sender's permission.
3. Board members should not e-mail some board members; they should, unless rules have been determined, e-mail all.
4. The executive director should always indicate the purpose of an e-mail to the board and there are only two reasons she/he should e-mail the board , one to provide information which does not require a response or second, to request a decision for which a response is essential.
5. E-mails to the board should not be used by the Executive Director to solicit board feedback or advice.

If you take issue with any of these, or even if you agree, you will want to read the arguments and take in some other suggestions for good board-staff e-mail practices outlined in: Guidelines for Board-Staff E-Mail Communication [PDF].

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We do not really know if we have the best non-profit board self- evaluation tool in the world but we could not find a better one, at least one that is available for free. Here you will find our newly developed Board Self-Evaluation Questionnaire [PDF] and as well as a couple of pages of Guidelines [PDF] to help you use it.

There are a number of quick board checklists available, but the questions on a short list are often too general or unclear in their meaning. Our questionnaire is a long one, six pages, but it is not difficult. It asks boards to assess whether they have done their job, worked well together and have a good working relationship with their Executive Director. It also asks board members to assess their own individual performance and provides a section, should you want it, that will give feedback to the chair of the board.

The NPSLP tool asks questions relevant to how board members communicate with one another and their skills at managing different points of view. It really attempts to evaluate the quality of board conversation, the board's performance as a team. It does not ask questions about appropriate board structures or composition.

We have posted Version II of the questionnaire here a pdf file. A couple of boards have tested our first draft and provided feedback. They now have their own customized versions. If your organization would like to test it and you are willing to provide us with some feedback, send us an e-mail and we will gladly send the questionnaire as MS Word file so that you can adapt it to your own needs. Your feedback will help us to develop an even better version.

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Strong relationships within organizations and between organizations depend on meaningful conversations, conversations that enable us to understand others and be understood. Meaningful conversations are also ones that engage our hearts and our minds. They are important both for the content and in building and maintaining relationships. Good conversations require more than getting people together over an important topic, they require us to so some internal work -the conversation we have with ourselves, as well as learn what works and what does not in terms of skills and techniques.

Our new course Transformative Communication for Non-Profit Leaders is built around the communication concepts found in three contemporary books. The first is The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook, by Peter Senge and others which is about building learning organizations. The second is Difficult Conversations: How To Discuss What Matters Most written by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen of the Harvard Negotiation Project. The third is the work of William Isaacs on Dialogue, The Art of Thinking Together.

The course which involves four day-long sessions and employs self-assessment instruments, reflective practices and role playing. It will also use creative or non-verbal exercises in exploring our experience with interpersonal and organizational conversations. An on-line bulletin board is used to facilitate communication between the classroom sessions.

The course is designed and led by Grant MacDonald, Director of the Program and Associate Director of the Negotiation and Conflict Management Program. Grant can be contacted at grant.macdonald@dal.ca

This course is an elective for those students seeking to complete their Certificate in Non-Profit Sector Management and will be a valuable to any others interested in a thought provoking and practical professional development opportunity.

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With this newsletter we have added a few new board resources to our web site as well as some new links. The new program resources includes three new draft policies, a Board Secretary Job Description [PDF], a Financial Management Policy [PDF] and a Human Resources Management or Personnel Policy [PDF]. These are all less than two pages in length.

Both the financial management and HR policy examples should meet the needs of organizations large enough to employ staff. Both are "board level policies" that is, they require the development of more detailed operational policies and procedures - a manual in most cases, which staff, not the board, may be responsible for developing and maintaining.

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We would welcome the submission of short articles or information items for this newsletter relevant to voluntary sector learning, research and public policy issues >> Contact us to submit an item

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