Empower, Account, Integrate and Sustain: The Board Administrator's Role

• Date: 01 May 2016
• Published date: 01 May 2016
• Author: Julia Steiner Halsted
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/bl.30044

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

Calendar of events ............... 4

Who’s organization

is it anyWay? ......................... 5

food for thought .................. 6

NUMBER 145, MAY–JUNE 2016

www.boardleadershipnewsletter.com

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Empower, Account,

Integrate and Sustain: The

Board Administrator’s Role

by Julia Steiner Halsted

Rockford Park District in Illinois (United States) operates 177 parks and facilities. As

a major part of her role as Policy Governance and Community Relations Manager

for the District, Julia Steiner Halsted is responsible for the administration of its use

of the Policy Governance® system. Here, she reects on what she has learned.

BOARD LEADERSHIP

INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO GOVERNANCE

View this newsletter online at wileyonlinelibrary.com

Board Leadership • DOI: 10.1002/bl • May-June 2016

As with any organizational change,

strategic implementation is criti-

cal to success. It is also often the most

challenging step of the process. Policy

Governance is no exception. To be a

success, the Policy Governance model

requires a great deal of bipartisan

commitment between the govern-

ing board and chief executive officer

(CEO). These essential participants

must begin their Policy Governance

journey with an acute understanding

of their roles and responsibilities as

defined by the governance model.

However, in our fervency to advance

board and CEO competency, we are

inclined to overlook the importance of

sustaining the system through ongoing

tactical application and the support

required to manage such systems.

Arriving at Policy Governance

Nearly twenty years ago, Rockford

Park District Commissioner Bruce

Atwood (board member) and a senior

administrator simultaneously encoun-

tered John Carver’s Policy Gover-

nance model. They were both greatly

intrigued. The administrator introduced

then CEO (for whom we use the term

Executive Director as seen in policy

extracts below) Webbs Norman to this

proposed utopian board-CEO gov-

ernance paradigm. Shortly after that,

Commissioner Atwood led the board

to implement policy governance. If the

model had not been introduced to the

board by a peer, at that time the notion

that the board should stay out of opera-

tions might have been laughable, if not

irreverent. Moreover, if the CEO had

not known of the model, he may have

been suspicious of the board’s motives

for moving toward this seemingly some-

what liberal system of accountability.

Instead, because of peer leadership on

the part of the board, and participative

management on the part of the CEO,

the District pursued Policy Governance

with the counsel of a trained consultant.

Recording Significant

Board Decisions

The Pearse Trust advises on

corporate and trust structures in

the United Kingdom, Canada, the

United States, and beyond. In a

recent blog post, they highlight

a case in which board trustees’

failure to maintain a high standard

of record keeping on a significant

decision came back to haunt them.

The 2014 ruling of the Royal

Court of Guernsey in the case of

the [AAA] Children’s Trust (Royal

Court, January 8, 2014, Sir Richard

John Collas, Esq., Bailiff). The trust-

ees asked the Court to bless its

decision to sell a significant part of

the trust fund that was tied up in a

property. However, the donor had

stated in part of a trust deed that

the property should be sold only

in exceptional circumstances and

at an appropriately extraordinary

price, and the decision to sell was

opposed by all the family members

and an advocate representing the

children and unborn and unascer-

tained beneficiaries.

The Court did not agree with

the transaction on the grounds

that it could not ascertain the main

issues surrounding the trustee’s

deliberations because there was

no relevant documentation to

support the decision. The Pearse

Trust recommends that trustees

always ensure that they properly

NEWS

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