Food for Thought

• Published date: 01 March 2020
• Date: 01 March 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/bl.30158

8 BOARD LEADERSHIP

The reason to add something like

Article 7 to one’s bylaws is to defend

one’s legacy against future leaders.

What value is there in serving an

organization that will devolve into an

unintelligent polarized (or segregated)

monstrosity? We are all aware of

organizations that once stood as bea-

cons of hope but now seem stuck, and

it is hard to imagine that their founders

and sustainers would have sacrificed

so much if expecting their legacy to

end that way. Yet today we know

what to expect. We know that it takes

discipline to avoid organizational deg-

radation, so we are willing to endure

discipline ourselves in order to force

the same discipline on our successors.

Without something like Article 7,

leaders will claim that their decisions

are justified by whatever process

selected them to be leaders. In other

words, any process for selecting lead-

ers would hand those leaders a blank

check, and greater consciousness will

not happen. Greater consciousness

cannot happen if plans and reasons

are not shared between the parts of

that greater consciousness. In retro-

spect, Article 7 is common sense, so

much so that one might be tempted

to suppose its discipline is already

required of anyone who has fiduciary

responsibility.

Yet some boards would not choose

to amend their bylaws to add some-

thing like Article 7. Most boards would

not add it until after they see other

organizations succeed with such an

amendment. Some boards would even

hold out until most bylaws include such

an article. This is reasonable. If enough

small nonprofits and businesses prove

the viability of such an amendment,

then it can spread to larger organiza-

tions, states, and, ultimately, nations.

The reason to adopt an amendment

like Article 7 is not merely to improve

decision-making in one’s own organi-

zation, but also to create a model that

can spread to other organizations.

Boards who pass such amendments—

and survive—can set a new standard

that may ultimately be applied glob-

ally. Every organization ultimately

shares in global threats, and raising

global standards by innovating better

governance is something every organ-

ization can do about those threats.

Imagine a world in which every govern-

ment responded to every legitimate

challenge by refining its reasoning. Is

that not our goal? And is there really

any other way to reach it?

Chris Santos-Lang can be contacted

at chris@grinfree.com.

References

1. Santos‐Lang, C. (2016). Evaluative

diversity and the board. Board Leadership,

2016(146), 4–8.

2. Hibbing, J. R., Smith, K. B., & Alford, J.

R. (2013). Predisposed: Liberals, conserva-

tives, and the biology of political differences.

New York, NY: Routledge.

3. Wilde, D. J. (2008). Teamology: The

construction and organization of effective

teams. Berlin, Germany: Springer Science &

Business Media.

4. Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind:

Why good people are divided by politics and

religion. New York, NY: Vintage.

5. Tononi, G., Boly, M., Massimini, M.,

& Koch, C. (2016). Integrated information

theory: From consciousness to its physical

substrate. Nature Reviews Neuroscience,

17, 450–461; Santos-Lang, C. C. (2018).

Corporantia: Is moral consciousness above

individual brains/robots? Paladyn, Journal of

Behavioral Robotics, 9(1), 1–5.

6. Santos-Lang, C., & Harris, B. (2018).

Varieties of elitism. Figshare. doi: 10.6084/

m9.figshare.7052264.

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BOARD LEADERSHIP

INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO GOVERNANCE

Diversity

(continued from page 3)

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

“It is well to respect the

leader. Learn from him.

Observe him. Study him.

But don’t worship him.

Believe you can surpass.

Believe you can go

beyond. Those who harbor

the second-best attitude

are invariably second-best

doers.”

David J. Schwartz