Dec. 7, 2008 - Building a Better Board of Directors for your association
I tried and tried last night to put the latest blog article on this site, but technology refused to cooperate. Since it was (I thought) pretty good stuff about assessing the strength of the Board of Directors of an association, and contained some nifty tools (I thought) that you might want to use in your own association, I decided to post the article on my own website and provide you with a link. To read my article on 'building a Better Board", click HERE.
“The board president told me that the bylaws committee is meeting this week. I asked the President why I didn’t know about this meeting, and why I wasn’t asked to coordinate the meeting as it stipulates in my job description that I should. The president replied that he would ask the chair, and I told him I would like to be present at the meeting.
Later he called to say that the committee chair said this meeting was just going to be a discussion meeting, and they didn’t need me there. I suggested that regardless of the chairman’s intent, minutes should be taken and an agenda prepared. My feeling is that this is not our policy, and not good leadership. What should I do?” *
For those of us who have been around a while, this is a familiar scenario. Sometimes it occurs as a result of lack of understanding on the part of the leadership, and sometimes it’s the handwriting on the “We’re not renewing your contract” wall. But regardless of the motive, it shouldn’t happen.
Alice the AE is right:
1.Minutes need to be taken of meetings. To let casual backroom meetings take place with no line of official communication to the board of directors is just bad leadership and can result in a very dysfunctional situation, and
2.Alice’s attendance at all committee meetings is in her job description (and possibly in the bylaws) and this committee chairman is coming between Alice and her ability to fulfill her employment promise to the association.
So what should Alice do? I’ll tell you my suggestions, but I’d like to hear from the rest of you as to what steps Alice should take.
My suggestion is that Alice call the committee chair directly, not making the board president the go-between. She should assume that the committee chair doesn’t understand the procedure that’s been spelled out, and that he’s also putting Alice in a very precarious situation by not permitting her to do her job. She should mention that she understands NAR’s model bylaws and the need to recognize areas of necessary compliance: keeping the association out of hot water is also one of the responsibilities of her AE position.
If the chairman still refuses to have her there at the meeting, my suggestion to Alice is that he be asked to communicate his wishes to the board of directors in writing, so that they are in understanding of the situation and the fact that Alice is capable and willing of meeting the functions outlined in her job description. She, too, may want to file an informational report on the situation with the directors, if it comes to that.
Very likely, it’s just that the chairman doesn’t understand, and is trying to spare Alice a trip across town. Maybe. But it’s situations like these that signal the need for an annual review of the board operating policies in a training session for both returning and new members of the leadership team.
OK. What would you have done????
*(ed. note: this letter is not a direct quote, but the point of the letter is accurate)
In this economy, “Travel” has the connotation of perks, parties, and paid personal vacations—at least, that’s how our members often see it. “The Travel Budget” is one of the first items on the slash and cut budget, again because the program has the overtones of fun and frivolity. “What??? November in Orlando???? …too bad it’s the same President who raised our dues and the same association exec that gets paid that fabulous salary besides…”
How do you as leaders and staff combat the resistance? Well, first of all you tighten your travel belts. Prioritize the trips (more on that later), and insist that parent associations use teleconferencing and virtual meeting technology whenever possible, and deliver education programs online instead of using the ‘bodies in seats’ model.
Secondly, never NEVER discuss the parties and receptions. Concentrate on the industry information items, economic news, new technologies, legislative and legal issues and other industry-relevant items which you bring back to the members. As a matter of fact, consider skipping parties and receptions and arranging for quiet dinners with your peers in order to share ideas and get inspired to do a better job when you get back home.
Third, do bring back information to the members who didn’t go. Make it clear to anyone you are funding that his job is to attend the key meetings and to submit a written informational report at the time he submits a reimbursement request. Then, communicate this information to the members and/or the leadership team.
Finally, be very clear in the budgeting process and the travel policy manual who gets to go on each trip and how much is in the budget for them to be there. Then, stick to it! And, by the way, you should know what percentage of your operating budget is travel related. Is it 10%? Less? Make sure the members have that picture too—in many associations ‘travel’ is a very small portion of total expenditures, though in the minds of economically distressed members the line item may seem disproportionately high (“We spent HOW MUCH for you to go on those fancy jaunts???”)
As I said earlier, when you budget do so with care. Know what your members will spend in Washington, DC or San Francisco or Orlando. Let THEM know how you calculated their budget allotment, and that you expect them to live within their means. And allocate the budget items to categories that relate to the programs in which they are participating—legislative visits are part of your political affairs budget, for instance. Have similar categories for Staff Education, Leadership Training, and MLS management—or whatever your programs are that require travel. In other words, concentrate on the objective of the trip, and don’t lump everything into one big amorphous category.
So, how to prioritize? The question that came to me from an association volunteer leader was, “ how to we budget for the staff (AE) travel?” My solution would be to first determine under which category your association falls—few resources, average resources, and unlimited funds. Then sit down with the AE and complete the following list (or one like it, depending on your circumstances):
Event
AE Importance Rating
Leadership Importance Rating
Average Score
State/Regional AE Seminar
NAR AE Institute
NAR Leadership Summit
State Leadership Training
NAR Convention
NAR Washington Legislative Meetings
State Convention
State Meeting 1
State Meeting 2
State Legislative Conference
State Professional Standards Training Program
MLS Vendor Support Group Meetings
And of course the list of meetings and educational events goes on and on. Realtors have a lot of meetings and, fortunately for the member associations, also offer a lot of low cost training and support for association staff. I think it should be a function of teamwork between the AE and the leadership to decide, given the resources available, which meetings represent the investment with the greatest return for the association as a whole. It’s not a matter of what the directors are ‘allowing’ this year, it’s a matter of what dollars there are to spend and what is needed most. I’m sure I don’t need to point out that in a weak and changing economy, trained and skilled staff and leadership are the best hope for a strong association.
Recently, a Realtor leader asked the question “How do we budget for travel for our AE? It’s always an issue, and we end up every year with hard feelings about the issue.”
After 30 years of this controversy, I sure do recognize the ambivalence—and even dread—with which leadership and staff approach the issue. The very nature of the Realtor organization is, I think, at fault. Over the years we’ve learned to regionalize and form partnerships and share services with each other as local and state associations and we bend over backward not to ‘reinvent the wheel’—we share MLS services, databases, ethics enforcement, education programs, RPAC training. What we don’t want to give up is our meetings.
And so there are local meetings, state meetings and state education programs, and NAR meetings and education programs and workgroups. An AE has a tough time staying home: in the Spring there’s the NAR AE Seminar and the Washington meetings. There’s also the state meetings. Later, more state meetings, and the state AE seminar, and the NAR Leadership Training in Chicago. Then in the fall, probably the state convention, state leadership training, state legislative meetings, and the NAR Convention. And for AE’s, we haven’t even mentioned various state specialty training in membership or ethics enforcement, nor have we taken into account that many of us belong to the American Society of Association Executives (OUR trade association), which has excellent meetings and training sessions in association management topics. And don’t forget the MLS regional and national meetings.
Travel schedules for leadership aren’t all that much different, either—just substitute franchise meetings for ASAE sessions, and it all comes out the same.
For me, coming from a smaller board, time and resources were huge issues. I am a hands-on kind of manager, and besides, we didn’t have the resources to have a back-up manager to step in while I was gone. So I had some tough choices to make, just as you do.
My guiding principle was this: these meetings replace skill training for any other job. And thus I made my choices based on what the meeting offered me in terms of what I could bring back to my association in the way of increased competence and understanding of my work, and in increased understanding of the issues facing the association members.
In thinking this way, I reached some interesting conclusions. First, my priority was anything that whispered the “E” word, “EDUCATION” in association management topics. For that reason, some items were lower on my list—the state association member meetings, the NAR convention. These seemed to be fairly far removed from my association job skills. Since I am not a Realtor, and can’t vote, my job seemed to be more as an interpreter and guide for the members. I made a lousy social director, so nobody wanted me around to arrange dinners and parties, because I’m usually in bed by the time things get rolling anyway.
At the top of my list were the NAR AE Seminar, the State AE Seminar, and various meetings of my peers. As you study the agendas, especially for NAR meetings, you’ll notice that the AE meetings start earlier than most of the member activities, and so I always travelled to them a few days before members needed to be there and then came home early—the NAR Directors meeting had little interest for me, because I couldn’t speak, couldn’t vote, and knew the outcome of many of the controversial items in advance.
I also found, after a while, that many of my staff could attend certain meetings, thus allowing me to stay home, and giving them education and familiarity with the state and national associations. And I felt it was a waste for both of us to be there—the association just didn’t have that kind of money.
We budgeted staff travel as ‘Staff Education and Training”, because that’s what it was. Again, going to a meeting is about becoming a more effective association staff person, not about sightseeing, shopping, drinks, and dinner.
And perhaps the most important part of the activity was the report to the Directors (in every instance of staff travel, a Directors Report was required). That report was important for everyone: it gave me the opportunity to education the leadership in industry issues and activities, to encourage awareness of the strength of the association on a state and national level, and to set the stage for future discussions which we as an association might have.
Was attendance at state and national meetings important to me? You bet—so much so that in the early 80’s when there was absolutely NO money in our association for such things I paid my own way, as did several other of my peers. But did I have to go to every meeting? No. There just isn’t enough time and resources to do it all. In the next couple of blogs I will explore how to make decisions about your travel priorities as a Realtor association leader.
A behind the scenes look at organized real estate--what works in an association, what doesn't, and what a long time AE sees as challenges facing the industry from the viewpoint of its professional organization.
RSS Blog Feed
.jpg)
