Nettie H.

Thank you so much for writing about this! Carol makes a good point — we aren’t even conscious of how much our words affect our actions. There is so much ‘good’ everywhere around us. We just fail sometimes to acknowledge it, and now we have a place where we can. I hope you don’t mind me asking everyone reading this to ask yourselves, “Is there anyone I could recognize today?”

We’re looking for volunteers to be community RecognizeGood reporters and videographers. Please contact : http://www.recognizegood.org or the volunteer coordinator at: george@skyhawkstrategies.com.

I agree with your comments, largely – although even when people join boards out of a desire to help and be involved (i.e. vs. for prestige or personal interest), they are not necessarily equipped to fulfill the role that is needed. Board training does help (which is likely why our monthly Board Primers fill up, I’m guessing), but it’s also important that the NGO have a concrete set of needs mapped out – expertise, resources, connections – for its board and recruit based on those needs.

Interesting perspective on “experts” making assumptions and, therefore, not asking questions. I can see how that might be useful, but would love to see boards filled with members who have valuable expertise and knowledge AND feel a sense of ownership in the organization’s success. Think how much further a NPO/NGO could go if its board was out front of the issues it works on and bringing valuable insight and guidance to the organization, rather than having to be brought up to speed on the issues…. Similar to the role a venture-backed private company’s board plays; of course, in this instance, the sense of ownership is generally guided by an actual ownership stake in the company, not a tool NPOs have at their disposal.

I think the way to get board members engaged is to ask them for help. Make them partners with staff in strategic planning, financial planning, and policy making. Don’t just report to them, as many nonprofits do. Bring them into the process. Learn together. Over time they will learn enough to feel comfortable being active members of a board. Of course, you have to keep talking about the fine line between setting policy and micro-managing.

I think nonprofits have a responsibility to teach their board members about their roles. The most important thing board members can do is ask naive questions. This holds the nonprofit accountable. Nonprofit managers have to be able to explain and justify themselves. Sometimes expert board members tend to make assumptions about what and why and fail to get an explanation from the viewpoint of the manager.

After doing this exercise, they had to report to someone who was speaking to another person. For those people who had “rude” words in their activity, they interrupted 60% of the time, vs. 20% for the “polite” word activity.

They all reported that the previous word activity had no effect on their actions afterwards.

Bottom line – most of our actions are sub-conscious. If we can “raise the bar” on the words we use, we will act in compliance with those words!