The essential Xmas

The White family has been gradually whittling away the trappings and associated dramas of Xmas, and I think maybe we are getting closer to the essence.

We have a widespread family all of whom used to feel conflicting obligations on Xmas Day. Which side of their respective family functions should they attend – one or both? If both, for which meal with which side of the family, and how to bear the long drive in between and 2 successive ordeals by food? If for one, who would face the pangs of guilt about settling in one spot, and risk being seen to disrespect their own side of the family?

We took a decision a few years ago that we would just declare the weekend before Xmas as "White Family Xmas", and leave the 25^th free for our respective other sides. That has meant that on each of those deemed Xmas's, we have had just about a full roll-up on our day. We virtually never manage such a simultaneous collection across what are now 4 generations at any other time in the year. So we have found ourselves delighted by the first essence of Xmas – family.

We have also been paring back the Xmas present thing. We took the relatively easy step a while ago of doing Kris Kringle for the adults and the kids who have left school, and only buying and wrapping more widely for the younger kids. This year, with the health difficulties of our oldest generation, and a generally high level of family complexity, the Kris Kringle draw was put off, and put off; finally my darling sister cut through it all with this: "None of us actually needs anything, so why don't we just all make a donation to charity?"

So we christened Xmas 2010 as "Xmas for Others", and when we got round to what would have been the Kris Kringle swap, we all instead took a turn to say which charity we were donating to, and what cause they served. And then we gave the little kids their presents, and watched the joy of those unwrappings. We all felt touched by the second essence of Xmas – giving.

This has been a tough year in our family, with the supervening pain of dad going into the nursing home. But I think we all felt a bit of healing on Saturday, as we touched the twin poles of the essential Xmas: family and giving.

****

There is of course another essence, of "Christmas" rather than Xmas. It is a time of intensely spiritual significance for many people, including within my own family, and I don't wish to diminish that significance with my "twin poles" view of the secular Xmas.

Wrong turns? Or new opportunities?

An impulse to turn down a side street grabbed me one morning while I was riding on my way to a favourite piece of dirt track. A break in the bush bordering the road looked like a path, and I headed down its bumpy length. The path got narrower and branches slapped against me, and then it just finished. "Wrong turn, dead end," I thought. I got off the bike to turn it around in the skinny space, and saw a snatch of sky through the trees. I leaned the bike against the foliage and stepped through, to be confronted by a startling vista.

I was looking way, way north, a direction usually hidden from me on my normal routes. I saw now rank on rank of hills, four of them one behind the other; the valleys of each ridge revealing the heights of the one behind, into the distance. A light mist was bathing the mountains that morning, and the early light was not yet strong enough to show much detail on the ridges, which showed in solid blue-grey. Each rank of hills was slightly paler than the one in front of it, and there was a perfect tonal gradation all the way to the horizon, meeting the pale sky.

A couple of minor scratches, and a short walk pushing the bike to where I could mount it again, were the only costs of the "wrong turn". Without out it, I would have missed the indelible imprint of those hills. So I guess maybe there aren't really any wrong turns, just turns.

“Namaste” – switching off my judgemental mode

I was walking through the airport, on very important business, in clever, snappy businessman mode, and saw a fat, shabbily dressed person in front of me. I straight away turned on my finely-tuned judge-ometer, which came up with the reading "Fat, shabbily dressed person obviously lacking self-respect." Half a second later the judge-ometer swung around, switched to self-judgement mode, and gave the reading "There you go again, judging people and exhibiting one of your worst and most persistent traits."

What I concluded on that occasion was that the best thing that could happen to me was to be transformed into a fat, shabby person for a week, so I could see what it would be like to have other people (like me) judging me all the time. THAT would help cure me of being judgemental, and I could trade the judge-ometer in on a large dose of humility.

Which was, of course, just another symptom of judgementalism. Because I was still drawing conclusions about the inherent undesirableness, and therefore blameworthiness, of being "fat" and "shabby".

It's perhaps likely that I will never reach a sufficient state of enlightenment such that I won't have impulses to judge my fellow men and women. But I have at least been working on strategies which may switch the judge-ometer off before it can spit out a condemnatory reading.

In India, people greet and farewell each other with "Namaste", which means "I see the divine in you." It's been helpful to me, when I'm about to say (or have just said) to myself "He's fat," or "Her clothes are too tight for someone with her figure," or "He's got no idea, he's just a blowhard" to do this: STOP. Look at them. Say to myself "I see the divine in you", and then actually try and spot that divine spark which makes them a special, unjudgeable human being. If I'm being sincere, I can nearly always see some glint of divinity.

The Avatar people have a nice process too – the "Compassion Exercise". Pick out someone in a public place, look at them, and say: "Just like me, this person is seeking some happiness for their life. Just like me, this person is trying to avoid suffering in their life ... Just like me, this person is learning about life."

I still have judgement days, but hopefully they are becoming less frequent. But should I be worried instead that sometimes I have periods when I walk around thinking "Everyone is beautiful", and feeling surrounded on all sides by spots of divinity? Hope not.

What my garden taught me, part 2

A couple more lessons from the garden:

Pausing

I suppose our gardens have been no different to most people's. I couldn't help, when I walked into our garden in Pymble, seeing so many things that needed doing. The gum trees rained down a constant flow of debris. Little weeds were always finding their way through the mulch. The stake of the pittosporum would give way and tip it against the fence. There were dead fronds on the big palm trees.

And that was without the projects. There was the pebble mosaic I wanted to do at the entrance to the Japanese garden. I was planning a new bed around the frangipani. There was the whole section where I had been squirreling building materials behind the shed "just in case" – it was overflowing and desperately needed rationalising.

This constant flow of things-I-oughta-be-doing was, in fact, keeping me from seeing truly the upside of our garden. What I realised is that I needed to PAUSE. Suspend the inventory of jobs. Then, instead of seeing the sticks and the leaves, look up and see the tall and casual elegance of the blue gums' trunks against the morning sky. Instead of thinking the lawn needs mowing, feel the soft give of the turf under my bare feet. Overlook the debris collected around the bromeliads and see the startling brightness of the red feather that emerged since the last time I paid attention to that plant. Forget that mulch has blown onto the stepping stones, and slowly and deliberately step on one, then the next one, and the next, and take that slow and revealing journey through the things we had been nurturing and tending, without appreciating what they were giving us back.

We get so busy with do, do, do, do that we can lose the point of what we are doing things for. It's no surprise about the cliché "stop and smell the roses." Walk into your garden, with no to-do list; pause; let it give something back to you.

Joy of the unknown

We bought a new house in Leura, specifically for the garden. The garden sold us the house but we first saw it at the end of December, and moved in mid-February. There were hydrangeas out, lots of them, and some roses. Except for the profusion of Japanese windflowers, the rest was pretty much green. Autumn came, and with it the brilliant red of the leaves on a large tupelo out the front. Just about everything in the garden was deciduous, and by the end of June all looked stark and bare. There were some green shoots poking up here and there as July progressed. I realised that what I had taken for tree roots in the lawn, and relentlessly mowed over, were in fact daffodils, and I ceased mowing them just in time.

We had been advised not to pull anything out until we'd seen what it might be. As winter faded, the show commenced. A tree burst into beautiful pink blossom. A wonderfully fragrant daphne made an olfactory assault. What I thought was onion weed was a bevy of spring stars. As one blossom tree faded another came into flower in a display of serial beauty. Last of all some alpine phlox carpeted the ground with purple and white broadloom.

Spring is just about done now, verging on summer, and the trees are back in foliage or close to it, and the perennials are flowering. The whole spring experience was one of discovery. Our expectations were vastly exceeded. The biggest kick was that most of it was unanticipated.

*****

I just had another lesson this morning, with my dear dad rushed off from the nursing home to hospital with a very gloomy prognosis. While I tried to sort out my emotions about that on paper, the climbing rose outside the kitchen window looked in at me with about 200 flowers that weren't there two days ago and probably won't be there in two days time. They have bloomed and flourished and will pass away, but their beauty will have had meaning during its time. My garden will keep teaching me for as long as I take time to learn from it.

What my garden taught me

I have been privileged over the past 10 years to have lived with 2 beautiful gardens. The first one we created, building on some solid foundations and much of it out of blank space. The second one we inherited when we fled the city (partly to experience cold climate gardening) from 2 people who had been developing it for 19 years.

Gardens are a wonderful case of give and take. Apart from just the sensuous pleasures they grant in return for the efforts applied to them, I can see that my 2 gardens have taught me some important lessons in life.

Acceptance

We bought a beautiful crab apple tree. We had seen their spring show in other people's gardens and had a place for one, right near the frangipani and in direct line of sight from where we sat on the deck, and even from the dining table. We planted it; it took just two days for the possums to discover that it was a delicious entree to their night's foraging, and they munched the new growth, and broke branches by climbing on them to reach the higher foliage. Brigitte had read that you could discourage them by putting bamboo kebab skewers in the ground around the tree. She put about a hundred wickedly sharp skewers around the base of the crab apple, and then got worried about the dogs hurting themselves. It didn't stop the possums anyway.

We moved the crab apple down into the Japanese garden, away from the possum route we hoped. I banged four stakes in the ground around it, and put bird proofing net around the stakes as a possum barrier. The poor little crab apple never recovered. By protecting it, we put a barrier between it and our capacity to nurture it.

We dug it out and gave it to Jenny, to plant in her garden in Leura. It is growing happily, and will put on a show in spring, I expect.

Sometimes, despite our expectations, some things are not meant to be in the way we plan them to be. Our efforts to make them be that way can sometimes work against any prospect of success. Sometimes the answer is to accept that a thing will not work out; to accept that gracefully and let it go without regret. That thing, like the crab apple, may just flourish somewhere else.

Patience

I was always fascinated, ever since I first saw them, by the row of cloud trees I used to see outside the Buddhist temple near the hotel in Tokyo where I frequently stayed. The ones where the branches are cultivated so there are tufts of foliage floating like clouds in a spring-time sky. They were junipers though, and pretty slow to grow in my experience.

I thought I could take a permissible short cut and try growing a cloud tree with lilly pilly. I bought one with an undefined mass of leaves and thought I'd go home and start trimming, see what would emerge.

Something held me back though; when I looked at the plant I saw nothing cloud-like at all. Instead of starting to chop and try and force a cloud to appear, I thought I could let it grow for a little while and see what developed. Over the next few months it was hard to keep the secateurs in my pocket. But after about 12 months my abstinence was rewarded. Three main branches were growing, in a lateral enough plane to stake one shoot out on each side and leave one central stem.

So far, I have a large bank of low cumulus cloud at the base of the cloud tree, and three puffs of cirrus floating above; a couple of higher clouds are in the process of forming if I can leave them to take shape. It wasn't easy keeping the cutting implements away, and avoiding the intervention to force a result. But I reckon it's been worth the wait.

More lessons to come next post.

Lines and Squares

Whenever I walk in a London street,

I'm ever so careful to watch my feet;

And I keep in the squares.

And the masses of bears,

Who wait at the corners all ready to eat

The sillies who tread on the lines of the street,

Go back to their lairs

And I say to them "Bears,

Just look how I'm walking in all the squares!"

 

My mum used to read me that when I was little. It's from a small book by A. A. Milne called "When we were very young", which also had "They're changing the guard at Buckingham Palace", and "John had Great Big Waterproof Boots on", and "Christopher Robin is saying his prayers", and plenty more little gems. I'm sure it wasn't mum's intention at the time, but "Lines and Squares" left me with a long term, strongly held superstition about where I could walk. Once I was in a fair bit of strife (only about 10 years ago, I'm ashamed to admit), and I figured it would all come out right if I didn't walk on any lines on the way to the station each morning. The problem was, the route to the station took me through the local school and across the playground. It was painted with basketball, netball and handball courts, all on top of each other. To get across the playground, I felt, and probably looked, like I was playing hopscotch.

I've been trying to kick the lines-and-squares affliction. At its root, like many afflictions, is probably fear. My friend Sarah Friis says: "Fear is our belief in our own inability to deal with an action or its consequences." Walking in the squares has been a tangible way for me to deal with that belief, I guess. The trouble is, it doesn't do anything to change the belief.

I've spent too much of my life thinking maybe I'm just a bit of a coward. Too much time being paralysed and not dealing with the thing feared. Through some hard lessons, I have found four things which help me with fear.

Recognise it

It really helps me to know when it is fear that is driving whatever current emotion I am trying to deal with. Upsetting emotions can come from sadness, grief, hurt at the plight of others – they are things you can sit with in a different way than being afraid of something. Recognising fear as the driver at any given time can almost be a relief, because then I know what I have to deal with.

Name it

It's really useful to me to be able to identify exactly what the fear is. It is not always immediately apparent, and some investigation is often needed. I spent time chasing down and articulating one fear, which I found out deep down to be the fear of being left alone. When I can name it, I can face it a whole lot more confidently.

Don't beat yourself up about it

I've done plenty of that, proclaiming myself to be a bit of a coward in the face of various fears. It doesn't help with the resolve needed to deal with the fear. I'm not alone in being afraid, and it doesn't make me less worthwhile. It just is, like being happy or feeling grief. I remind myself just to accept it as part of life.

Do something, anything

The most destructive part of fear for me is the paralysis it brings. If I have been able to recognise and name a fear, and not beat myself up about it, the final bit for me is to do something to address it. Often the smallest step I can take is the best step, perhaps because it's the easiest. Open and read that email I haven't really wanted to read. Create a document and save the file and write a heading even if I can't write the whole document just yet. Just doing one little thing usually helps to shake me out of the paralysis.

Recognising, naming, doing something – the most usual result I get is a validation of the well-worn statistic that 80% of what you fear never happens. And the other 20% - well, at least I'm not crumbling in front of it. So I'm sorry Christopher Robin, but I just want to say: "Bugger you, bears, I'm walking on the lines."

The Riding

I was on the way home from a pretty special bike ride (see the recent post on "Place") and there had been a fair bit of hooting and hollering from the joy of the ride: muddy, wet, and cold notwithstanding. I had jumped the bike over the drainage humps, and felt the giddy liberty of mid-air; I had given it its head down short steep rocky slopes hanging on grimly; I had valued the low gears grinding back up those slopes; I had felt the rush of riding really hard along the flat pebbly sections. I had thoroughly enjoyed riding my bike.

As I rode home the last few k's, still in the relatively quiet early morning, something else crept up on me in that peaceful time. Out there, in the dirt, it had been just me, my bike and the track, all having a great time together. Now, it was no longer the rider and the ridden, and the duality dropped away till it was just one thing – the riding. No need for an excited, congratulatory self, digging it all, but enough to be part of what was happening in that moment, fine to be nothing. No need for an observer to observe it, or a doer to do it. It just was. "When you recognise this, you will realise that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything" says Kalu Rinpoche, the Tibetan lama. "That is all."

The experience didn't last that long, and I drifted back to me, my bike and the road, but it was a moment of awakening. There are plenty of good things written, spoken and podcasted about non-duality by much more enlightened hearts and minds that mine. The riding, though, was an exquisite validation that when the self falls away, awareness doesn't need to; in fact it heightens, and an ordinary rural back road early on a Saturday morning can become as sacred as any temple, anywhere, even when you are splattered with mud.

****

After I wrote this blog, I came across this from Jon Kabat-Zinn in Coming to Our Senses, writing about a field near his house which he walks past each day, at different times and in different seasons:

In walking these paths, there is less and less separation between me and the view when I give myself over to attending , when I allow myself to come to and to live within my senses. Subject (seer) and object (what is seen) unite in the moment of seeing. Otherwise it is not seeing. One moment I am separate from a conventional scene as described to myself in my head. The next moment, there is no scene, no description, only being there, only seeing, only drinking in through eyes and other senses so pure they already know how to drink in whatever is presented, without any direction at all, without any thought at all. In such moments, there is only walking, or standing, or only sitting ....

Yep, that's what I'm talking' about.

Place

It's a long drive, and it was late at night. I was tired, and Brigitte was asleep in the seat beside me. But as I got closer to the destination, the tiredness fell away; and when I turned off the highway and pointed the car at Sussex inlet I felt my heart soften, and a bunch of negative vibes melted away. I drove the last 13 k's probably a bit too fast, but it was just some joy, too long hidden, bubbling out.

I had forgotten the importance of place. There are plenty of things which we can use to make sense of an imperfect and shifting world, but place can be taken for granted. With somewhere like Sussex Inlet, for me, place can be inter-woven with emotional threads reaching back 45 years, from late childhood, to teenage surf zealot, to gonzo uni student, to young father and now (young, I hope) grandfather. I don't believe, though, that the peace which settled on me on Friday night was just about happy memories. The place was speaking to me.

I got up early the next morning, with only my son Tim and baby Kennadie awake at that hour, and snuck out on my bike. I turned onto a vaguely familiar dirt road, was dive-bombed by a currawong, and had a black wallaby race across my path. It was early, it was muddy, and no other fool but me was out there in the conditions; I had it all, all to myself. The road was fast in spots, and in others the bike sank to its axles (and my feet) in cold dirty water stretching right across the path. The conditions didn't matter. Fast or boggy, descending or slogging uphill, the place was special and granted just to me. My hoots of exuberance bounced off the trees and mystified the black cockatoos. On the way home, I pulled in at a little look-out with a view over the rocky cove which had been one of the favoured, treasured surf spots and I connected with the place, as well as the memories.

I stood on the wharf at sunset, Kennadie on my hip and the tumble-down trees edging the far bank; the evening light tinting the clouds, mirrored in the ruffled water. A place like many others, I guess, but a place to me.

It's there if you let it be there. Feel it through your feet, or your pedals, or even the car's tyres. Place can touch you, caress you, restore you. You just have to keep your senses open so that when you get to the right place, the link is made.

Three lessons from my father

I have just had that gut-wrenching experience of putting my dear father in a nursing home, for permanent high-level care. A bloke who, in his prime, could turn his hand to anything from the dark art of cost accounting to the greasing and oil-changing of a 1937 Dodge.

Probably from having been a teenager in the sixties, I can see now that I spent a lot of time devising lessons about what not to do in life, based on an opposition to some of what he did, which from here looks pretty self-righteous on my part.

Now, as he sits in his favourite chair, diminished, I see glimpses of the younger, resourceful, capable dad. I have started to collect the positive lessons from my father. Here are three strong and memorable ones for me:

Keep your left hand behind the cutting edge

When you are holding the chisel in one hand, and the piece of wood in the other, you don't want to be in the position where, if the chisel jumps, you end up chiselling yourself. Keeping your left hand behind the cutting edge was just a piece of dad's common sense imparted to young, enthusiastic but impetuous carpenters who went down the shed to "make something". When I look back, it was also about risk management. You can take some simple enough steps to prevent damage, without really compromising the ability to achieve the outcome. Apply a bit of care to the way you set something up, and then execute it. Think about it while you are doing it. Keep your form.

On another level it's about what is worth what. Seemingly keeping that bit of wood a bit steadier with your hand in front of the chisel, and risking a deep gash and some stitches – or taking it a bit slower, even clamping the wood to the bench instead. Sometimes the bit of extra time saved, or the effort, isn't really worth it.

You can have a go at really big things

My dad was, by training, experience and inclination, an accountant. That didn't stop him from tackling some really big projects. We had a block of land down the south coast. With four kids at school, the only way there was going to be a holiday house, in dad's view, was if he built it himself. There was room down the back, in the chook pen, to build a set of dummy foundations. At his workplace, the temporary office premises where he had been overseeing a factory start-up, were being pulled down. He bought the discarded timber beams for a song, each one of them 12 inches x 2 inches (that's 250 mms x 50 mm), and a giant saw-bench that the builders had been using. He ripped the big beams into 4x2s and 3x2s for the frame of the new holiday house.

He built the roof first, sitting it on the dummy brick piers. It was a hip roof, not an easy-way-out gable roof. That meant a whole lot of compound mitre cuts, blending two different angles, for all those rafters as they met the hip coming down from the ridge. I wish I had watched all that, and got dad to show me how to use that thing with all the dials and numbers called a "rafter-graph". I have tried to cut compound mitre joints since and I know how hard they are to pull off. He must have cut 25 or 30 of them. He assembled the roof with the double-headed nails they use for concrete formwork; numbered all the beams; then pulled it apart easily because of those clever nails. Then he built the wall frames. Left them intact, hired a bloke with a truck and had it all carted down the coast. We all had a hand in putting it back together, dad and my brothers and I. It's still there 40 years later. And everyone still loves going there.

Building a house isn't something your average accountant does. Dad did, because he was prepared to have a go at it – at something really big.

Bricolage

There's a current trend called "decluttering", throwing out anything that you don't need for the present or the immediate future. There is, however, a competing theory known as "bricolage": taking whatever you might have at hand, and using it to address whatever need you currently have – even if it means having stuff around, just in case you might need it to address such a need. Dad always had a fair amount of stuff down the back. It is arguable that he had too much of it. (Actually, it's undoubtable). But his first response to doing a job was to assess what he already had, rather than writing out a shopping list and then going out to buy it. A wedge to keep a door open. A bookshelf. A set of swinging boards to hold scores of tools in a confined space. That idea of thinking about how some issue, some challenge, can be dealt with by using what you already have, has been a wonderfully helpful, life-long example to me. Even though it means I have to find somewhere to keep that supply of assorted lengths of timber, empty containers, a variety of fasteners and a wide array of seldom used tools – just in case.

I reckon bricolage applies just as importantly to people. I have twice started new jobs, each time with advice from the HR director that "you really need to get rid of so-and-so out of your department – we thought we would wait till you started so you could do it." Each of those two so-and-sos were not "got rid of" – they knew a whole lot more than me about the company and the job I was supposed to be doing, and they were already at hand. Each of them re-invented themselves to be consecutively the two best, most loyal team members I ever had. So often, it's all about what is already in the kitbag.

What I find sad now is that I can't tell dad about the importance of those three lessons to me. His cognitive ability has slipped just beyond the capacity to take it in. I tried a little while ago to remind him, on his Father's Day card, of "keep your left hand behind the cutting edge", and he just gave me a friendly smile. So I learned one more lesson out of the whole process: acknowledge the lesson to the teacher while they can still appreciate the acknowledgement. But dad: thanks anyway.

E+R=O

This is a great insight from my mate Liam Forde.

The first thing that comes into your head when something happens is often not the best thing. Something or someone may have pushed one of your buttons. I've been particularly prone to that if something looks like injustice, or if someone else is taking credit for something I've done. Your first reaction is probably not your intuition speaking. It's more likely to be patterned behaviour, or be fuelled by adrenalin in a 'flight or fight' response. What you don't get then is an opportunity to work out what the best response, as opposed to the first response, may be. When the event happens, the response, whatever it may be, will determine the outcome. Event plus response equals outcome - E+R=O.

You may not, probably will not, control the event. What you can control is the response, and you can therefore influence, or even drive, the outcome. There's just one thing you need to do that: Stop! Before you speak, before you act - stop, examine what you are about to do or say, maybe take a breath. The Buddhists call it "the sacred pause". Then decide what your response will be, rather than let your adrenaline, or your hot buttons, or even your prejudices, decide it for you. It happened to me a while ago, when my wife claimed credit for an idea that I reckoned I had, and I jumped right in and said '"No, that was my idea". And it didn't actually matter a damn whose idea it was, and a great response would have been to say nothing. Or even better, to have said "Great idea darling."

This, of course, does not apply to emergency or life-threatening situations, where you may have to act immediately and by reflex. But generally, you have a choice. As my old boss Russ Hewitt said, "Shit happens, suffering is optional". When an event happens, your response dictates or strongly influences the outcome. E+R=O. Your choice.

What if you don’t really need the money?

My father had what I would have called the great good fortune to be retrenched at 57. After nearly 40 years with the one company. The retrenchment was due to the closure of a joint venture plant which had reached the end of its economic life. So there was no shame in it, and I don't think he felt any. His long service with the company made the retrenchment financially advantageous to him.

But over the next few years I watched my dad's internal clock slowly wind down, and twenty years later it hardly ticks at all. Dad had a bit of a part-time job for a while, but it seemed to fizzle out. As best I could work out, he didn't really need the money at the time, and there didn't appear to be anything left to fire him up, or keep him busy beyond counting the collection plates after church on Sunday mornings.

I find myself in a similar kind of position of "not really needing the money." My life joint venture partner might well respond "what's need got to do with it?" But I have caught myself once or twice, recently, thinking that it's pretty relaxing spending an hour to read the paper thoroughly in the morning, then put in a solid couple of hours in the garden before having a coffee in the village.

During one of those recent thorough newspaper readings, I came across a reference to Oscar Niemeyer, the famous architect, "still busy at work at 102." That, and a few other nudges from different directions, have set me thinking about what is the spark which must keep glowing, to make "semi-retirement" the vibrant, valuable, worthwhile stage it ought to be? A very relevant question at 56, with plenty of "lifestyle options" available to keep me fully, though not perhaps meaningfully, entertained.

The drivers which I am about to share are of course very personal ones, and unavoidability tinted with the colours of a later-in-life spiritual journey of which work is just a part. But here they are, for the record if nothing else.

Mortality

I have been to funerals over the past few years of good people who have left this earth in their 40s, 50s and early 60's. There are no guarantees. While the statistics say I have 21.9 years left here, in coming to an average there are always low scores to offset the big numbers. I still feel the pressure of things in my head, in my history, which I think are worth extracting, crystallising, applying in new circumstances, and passing on to others. Lessons which I may have learned at someone else's expenses, and are thereby tinged with a karmic obligation. Hard-earned insights which might save someone else pain and suffering if shared. What if the 21.9 years are 10, or 5, or 6 months, or tomorrow? Things often feel like they are queuing up inside me for dissemination, and I have to get as many of them out, and shared, and applied, as fast as possible. Just in case.

Service

It seems to be more common these days that people in their middle years have a view about "giving something back". To me there are a couple of supervening reasons to keep going in service of meaningful goals. The first one is gratitude. I've received plenty of lucky breaks in life and garnered lots of advantages. To undertake worthwhile things helps balance the celestial ledger. The second one is something that the Buddhists call "right livelihood", which asks us to love our world through our work. Aligning "love for the world" with our jobs when we are full tilt at our careers isn't always a simple process. I have found that there is inevitably greater scope for this kind of work/world love alignment once the imperatives of career advancement and family support diminish – like, it's never too late. Kahlil Gibran said: "All work is empty save when there is love, for work is love made visible."

The dividend from this alignment is the well known outcome that when you give something back and help others, you can't avoid helping yourself.

Purpose

I've been very fortunate over the past 7 or 8 years to have had mentors who have shown me the power of having a considered, articulated, explicit purpose in life, and who have helped me to discover my own purpose. At a vocational level, that purpose is to help people and organisations find clarity and direction. Just to be pursuing those "lifestyle options" will not be enough to help deliver on my purpose. Purpose stands as a measure against which both the big issues, and the small stuff, can be compared.

Renewal

Being involved in real work means I spend time with smart young people. Their talent, their energy, their ideas, spark me up and put the kind of charge in my batteries that I can't find in books, blogs or discussions with my peers. I'm working with one young star at the moment in a context she calls "thought partnering". That is a generous description in my view because she's actually showing me how to do something outside my current skill set. Hopefully I am adding something back in the thought partnering process. Another renewal effect comes from working as part of a team, instead of just running a solo operation, and feeling the rewards of shared endeavour.

Doing it anyway

There is a piece of wisdom called "The Paradoxical Commandments". They were mistakenly attributed, for a long time, to Mother Teresa. It doesn't matter what the source is; it's the wisdom that counts. They have been helpful to me in showing that good and important things might as well be done whether or not they are to stand the test of time, whether or not they set up some kind of legacy. They also help me to be conscious of not wanting to accumulate good deeds in service of my own legend. Some of the commandments which most connected with me were:

• "What you spend years building, someone may destroy overnight. Build anyway"
  
• "The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow. Do good anyway."
  
• "Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough. Give the world the best you've got anyway."
  

Self-esteem

It's not very altruistic, I suppose, but I just feel better about myself when I am doing things that matter, and aren't focused only on me. That same caveat, of being careful not just to be acting in service of my own legend, is important in this context: pride is very close to self-esteem on the merit continuum.

This all started out with my dad. It looks like an exercise based on what I learnt not to do from him, but I am grateful for the positive lesson drawn from his example. What I do know is that I had two big advantages which my dad didn't – I had him for a father and my mum for a mother. Those are other stories yet to be told.

The Power of the Debrief

Debriefing a mission is standard practice for people in the military. Debriefing some of the things we do at work and in life can give a lot of benefits - time for reflection, celebration, learning and enhancement. You can debrief anything, from a hard conversation to a long and complex transaction.

I learnt this framework for debriefing from my friends and mentors Liam Forde and Sarah Friis. It's very simple but effective, and revolves around three questions:

• what went well
  
• what didn't go so well
  
• what could be done differently next time.
  

 

Depending on the situation, the debrief might best be dealt with at a personal level – what do I do well, what didn't I do so well, what could I do better next time.

If there are two or three of you debriefing, you can run it by answering those three questions yourself. You can then have the other people answer the questions about you as well, so you get instant and valuable feedback. If there was no-one else there with whom you can de-brief, like a debrief for a hard conversation, you can still grab someone and say 'let me do a debrief with you'. You can then (respecting the confidentiality of the other party to the hard conversation) ask yourself the three questions while the other person listens. Last resort is to do it in writing – I often debrief in my daily journal.

If the mood takes you, there are two further questions you can ask to get some positive closure on the issue you are debriefing:

• what do I congratulate myself for from the situation
  
• how am I going to celebrate.
  

 

I have found this to be a very powerful process. It can take some discipline, and sometimes you have to push people if you are using the personal variant of the first question – what I did well – although they usually have no trouble with the other two. Taking positive reinforcement from the debrief is a valuable component. So if you really want to capture all the learnings and benefits out of any situation, do a debrief.

 

The Managing UP Kit part 7 – You and the chair

The CEO's relationship with the chair is a critical one for the success of the organisation – each of you is at the pinnacle of the respective arms of management and governance. As with any relationship, it usually works best when the two people involved are clear about the nature and boundaries of their place in the relationship, and there are clear and agreed lines of communication.

In other words, you need to be prepared to talk to each other about how you will talk to each other, and make the terms of your relationship as explicit as possible. Here are some of the areas where is it helpful to have agreement:

• You need to be clear about each person's role as the public face of the organisation. Who will be the primary media representative; from whom will comment be sought? Which areas are clearly the territory of the chair, and which are the CEO's?
  
• You need to understand when, and in what circumstances, you can disagree with each other in the board room in front of the other directors, and how the difference of opinion can be constructively dealt with.
  
• You need to know the boundaries of the open access you have to each other – is it 24/7, no weekends, not after 8.00 pm?
  
• You need a working ability to give each other constructive feedback, and a willingness to receive it.
  
• You should be clear about the nature of the chair's role as your mentor, and how that can work best for both of you.
  

 

What chairmen need most, in my experience is "No surprises" – if there is bad news the chair should not find out about it first in a board meeting and without prior mention. The chair has credibility to maintain with the other directors, and will undoubtedly want to assess how the most constructive result can be obtained from the adverse situation.

The Managing Up Kit part 6 – Board access to management

One of the most contentious issues in board – management relations is the degree of access which individual directors may have to the organisation's management team. The most useful way to regulate that access is to have a protocol approved by the board on the circumstances in which directors may interact with management.

There are a couple of ways in which such a protocol can be developed. You may want to raise it with the chair and include (with their consent) a discussion at a board meeting in which a protocol may be hammered out and articulated. Or you may want to try the power of the first draft and prepare something for the consideration of the chair initially and then the board. The form and content of the protocol need to be organisation-specific, but here is an example of what a typical protocol might look like.

 

Protocol for board access to management

• Directors may have access to the CEO at any time and for any reasonable purpose. The CEO should have access to directors for their guidance and counsel in relation to areas of particular know-how, experience or skills which the director may have.
  
• Directors may have access to the members of the senior management team to seek information or clarification ahead of a meeting about matters covered in the board papers.
  
• Directors may give constructive feedback directly to the CEO about the CEO's performance in relation to specific matters.
  
• Before giving any constructive or negative feedback to a senior executive about their performance, or that of their staff, directors should consult with the CEO and. if the CEO requests, allow the feedback to be passed on by the CEO if that is the CEO's preference.
  
• However, directors should feel free at any time to give positive feedback or reinforcement to executives (as long as it is not "Well done, BUT….")
  
• When giving constructive feedback to the CEO or executives, directors should follow accepted practice and ensure that the feedback is given with an appropriate degree of respect, and is timely, prompt, specific and supportive of learning.
  
• Directors should not seek information from or access to staff outside the senior executive team without prior consultation with the CEO, who may in their discretion propose an alternative course.
  
• Directors are encouraged to provide counsel and mentoring to executives, after consultation with the CEO and the chair on the most appropriate way to do so.
  
• When dealing with each other, directors, the CEO and executives should act and communicate in a way which is respectful, open, transparent, and for the purposes of the business of the organisation, or the personal development of the CEO or executives.
  
• Directors should be aware of the potential for appearance of preferential treatment about the organisation's products or services when dealing with management – obtaining things for free or at deeply discounted rates.
  

The Managing Up Kit part 5 – Be clear about what you want from the board

A frequent source of confusion, and therefore of ineffectiveness, between board and management is a lack of clarity about what the board is actually being asked to do at a board meeting. There are a number of potential outcomes when a matter is considered by the board. An issue may be for the board's information, such as a survey of the external competitive environment. It may be for noting, such as a risk management report, so the board can show they have considered relevant prudential matters and discharged their duties. It may be for a decision in principle, so that further work can be done to focus more sharply the final decision. Or it may be a request for a formal resolution, so that a transaction or course of action can be undertaken.

If you are not sure, and explicit, about what you are asking the board to do, neither will they be. You may end up with something unhelpful, or delay-inducing. Take the time to articulate exactly what you want from the board. Even if you don't get it, you will have the board in the right territory, and you will give them the opportunity to delineate what they want done before they will agree to what you are seeking.

Do you want the board:

• Simply to be informed about something
  
• To note, for their benefit or yours, some action or state of affairs
  
• To agree to something in principle, and also to agree on what else needs to be done before any final approval is given by them
  
• To decide, and authorise formal actions to be taken
  
• To decide, with conditions precedent before any action is taken, but still granting authority to proceed without further board involvement (a very useful mechanism for CEOs for getting on with things)?
  

 

Whatever it is, make sure you tell them clearly. State what outcome you want in any board paper or board report; include it briefly in a separate column in your first draft agenda (eg "note", "agree in principle", "resolve"), to help the chair support you in getting what you need.

Finally, be prepared for the eventuality that you may actually get everything you asked for. A common follow-on from the board in such circumstances is "What else do you need?" or "What will be the next step after that?". Not being able to articulate that next stage may mean you miss out on an opportunity that might not come again soon.

The Managing Up Kit part 4 – Taking one for the team

One of the inevitable parts of being a leader is taking the responsibility for what your team members do. They won't always produce the best results – none of us do. Sometimes there will be serious mistakes. When those happen, and are being explained to or reviewed by the board, probably the least successful tactic a CEO can employ is to focus the blame on the executive or team member who has made the mistake. I've watched it happen often in board rooms. Mostly it looks obvious and undignified. The same result occurs when one executive tries to pin an unfortunate consequence on another executive, in front of the board.

When mistakes happen, usually the most effective way to deal with them is just to take the position with the board that "it happened on my watch, and I take responsibility for that". To the extent that the circumstances allow, the board will see where actual blame lies. The CEO will appear much more statesmanlike by not pointing the finger at someone else.

That's not to say that the mistake or poor performance should not be dealt with appropriately or on its own merits. Just don't do it in front of the board.

The Managing Up Kit part 3 – are you on the board as well as being CEO?

It's not unusual for the CEO also to be a member of the board; that's where the title "managing director" came from. Being on the board, as well as being CEO, brings an added layer of complexity which is worth your while thinking, and talking, about.

The CEO "reports" to the board in a line management sense, and is certainly accountable to the board for the performance and success of the organisation. But there are no grades of directorship. Every director has the same duties, responsibilities and liabilities under the law – subject only to their obligation to employ their individual skills and expertise in a way that any similarly skilled person would reasonably do so as a director. In their capacity as director, the CEO is a brother or sister in liability with the rest of the board.

This dual nature of the CEO's role can cause some difficulty however, particularly for the CEO's participation in board meetings. I think the key to successfully managing the duality is to accept it as inevitable, and to be clear which hat you are wearing – CEO or director – at any given stage in the board meeting. In presenting reports to the board, or discussing the organisation's performance, you are unavoidably wearing the CEO hat, and should expect the board to ask searching questions or make incisive comments – in other words not treat you as one of them. When the board is making important decisions or approving significant transactions, you are entitled to put on your director hat, and exercise your rights as director on an equal footing with the rest of the board.

This is sometimes a hard thing for the board to recognise. It is an issue which is worth a specific discussion with at least the chair, to ensure that the rest of the board should expect there will be times when you will not be answering to them, but standing side by side with them.

In my experience this is not a card to be over-played, and tactically it is usually preferable to put on your director hat only when the context really requires it. This may be when you feel that the board may not be heading in the right direction, or when consensus is not appearing likely and a vote may be needed. The power of your director's hat is probably inversely proportional to the number of time you explicitly put it on.

One thing you should bear in mind about your position on the board is the information imbalance. As CEO you will be aware in great depth of the organisation's circumstances, performance and prospects. Non-executive directors touch the organisation much less frequently (see a previous post on "Managing the board") so be conscious when you do wear the director hat that you will have information the rest of the board does not, and act accordingly.

 

The Managing-Up Kit part 2 – Embracing the Power of the First Draft

It is usually unrealistic to expect that people in non-executive positions will have the time (or possibly the experience or know-how) to be preparing important material that impacts on you personally or on the organisation you lead. What senior or non-executive people can contribute much more practically is to review drafts. That has likely been a large part of their more recent lives. Giving a chair or a director a blank sheet of paper is mostly a recipe for disappointment, or an invitation to be given something back you don't want or won't like.

Some of the things you should consider doing as a first draft, if you haven't got them in place already, are:

• Your job description – it's likely that the only one which exists is the one prepared by the recruitment agency or the headhunter; suitable for that process but not so useful for explaining what you will do on a day-to-day, or quarterly, or annual basis. Have a go at writing down what you do – a high level description including the purpose of your job; then your responsibilities; then the things you are held accountable for; and then functional things. Think about how it can be expressed in terms of deliverables. Then share it with the chair. It will be interesting to get their perspective on what they think your job is. They can discuss, comment, amend, delete – but it is very unlikely that they will scrap it and re-write it from scratch.
  
• Your own performance goals and KPIs – there will inevitably be a negotiation process with the chair and even the board in coming to the final version. In doing your first draft, it's helpful for both you and the person doing your review if you can be as specific as possible in setting up measures, as tangible as possible , and as objective as you can make them. Some goals may be more difficult to nail down as numbers, particularly around the assessment of your leadership. This may be a place to use 360 degree feedback or staff engagement scores. When performance review time comes, you'll find you will be managing up more effectively, and be having a more fruitful conversation, with a good framework to hang the conversation on.
  
• The board meeting agenda – The way the board meeting runs, and therefore the way the board and management interact, are both heavily influenced by the board meeting's agenda. Sadly, the construction of the agenda often ends up in a vacuum, or defaults to the company secretary if there is one. The final authority over the agenda rests with the chair. For the reasons discussed in "Managing the board", they are unlikely to draft it personally. There is usually a priceless opportunity available to produce a first draft of the board agenda, which is more likely to be appreciated by the chair than to be seen as presumptuous. There will invariably be some adjustment to your draft, but you will have taken an important step in influencing the context, and thus the outcomes, of the board meeting.
  

The Managing-Up Kit – how CEOs can work more effectively with their boards (part 1)

For an organisation to run most effectively, the CEO needs a sound working relationship with their board. Boards by their nature have a number of features which need careful attention from management:

• Boards must produce collaborative decisions and results derived from a number of individuals with different skills and backgrounds
  
• Directors usually have other jobs, and do not touch the organisation on a frequent basis
  
• Directors face particular, and sometimes stringent, legal duties and obligations
  

 

This blog series provides a number of suggestions and tools to help CEOs develop productive relationships with their boards.

 

Managing the board

If your board is comprised of part-time, or "non-executive" directors, there are some important factors you need to bear in mind as a CEO or senior executive, to ensure that you have the most productive relationship possible with the board.

Because of the intrinsic nature of their interaction with the organisation, non-executive directors generally do not touch it or its business or operations on a regular basis

There are two major consequences which flow from this irregular interaction:

• You cannot assume that directors will remember in detail what has happened in previous board meetings or strategy retreats. It is usually helpful to give a quick recap or summary of what has been previously discussed or decided by the board before launching into any new stage. When preparing reports or presentations, it is simple enough to commence with something like: "Directors will recall that at the last board meeting, it was agreed that there were three important factors to be taken into account [then list them], and it was decided to take the following actions [then summarise them]"
  
  
• Because of their intermittent touches of the organisation, non-executive directors form impressions, fairly or not, on the basis of the occasional things they see or hear which affect them personally, or push one of their particular individual hot buttons. It is useful to draw on your observations of the board generally, and directors individually, to identify particular hot spots they might have. You will then be in a better position to minimize the chance for any unproductive interactions. For instance, lawyers on the board (like me, sadly) are likely to react adversely to typos; accountants generally don't like to see numbers that don't add up. Give yourself a head start by eliminating avoidable errors.
  

Top tips for new NEDs

I was talking over lunch to a bloke who had just scored his first serious non-executive director appointment – a very serious one, in fact, to a top 10 listed company. I made so bold as to offer him my top 3 tips on being a good NED.

1. Before you say anything in a board meeting, ask yourself why you're about to say it. I've seen too much boardroom discussion which is ego-driven, banging on about old hobby-horses, or just not being of any use to the topic or agenda item under consideration. A slight pause before you throw in your bit can help to ensure that it has relevance, is not being driven by some collateral purpose, and will have the right tone for that moment. This might even include a bit of calculated frustration or stroppiness, which can play a useful part in the board dynamic – as long as it is calculated.
   
2. Master the art of the intelligently naive question. Management will often, intentionally or not, start discussions at a place some distance from the most sensible starting point for the board's purposes – often because they would prefer not to explain or justify some of the basic underlying assumptions. Testing these assumptions is a vital part of the NED role: while you might initially appear to be a bit dumb in bringing the discussion back to a more basic level, it is more likely than not that your seemingly naive question will flush out some crucial piece of information not previously revealed, or something worth debating.
   
3. Don't let an acronym pass you by if you don't know what it stands for. I guarantee that you won't be the only person in the room in that position. That may include the person spouting the acronym. I once caught out the director of the technology division (surely the high temple of the cult of the acronym) talking about a vital and expensive piece of equipment called a GGSN. I asked "What does that stand for?", and he didn't know. It turned out to be a compound acronym, where one of the letters stood for another acronym. Informed debate needs everyone to understand clearly just what is being debated. Like the GPRS Gateway Service Node, not the General Gauge Sensor Network or the Great Green Sea Nymph.
   

I'm not sure the new NED was quite ready to display as much ostensible naïveté as I was recommending, so early in his tenure and in front of his heavy-hitting colleagues. I suppose it is ultimately a matter of balance, but you don't always have to look clever to be clever.

The Board Coach

Recruiting not-for-profit directors part 4 - The Recruitment Process

After you have done the skills analysis, put in place your building blocks, and assembled the recruiting materials (see the previous blogs), the next issue to be decided is “Who will be responsible for the recruitment process?” This can depend on the resources available to the board. The most common route is for the board to establish a committee (historically called the “nominations committee”) to oversee the process, in line with the board’s guidelines and the results of the skills analysis. The ultimate aim of the committee is to come up with recommendations to the board for appointment – either a short list or a preferred candidate.

Your board may not be large enough for the luxury of another committee – if that is the case, then either the whole board can run the process, or a lead director (with sufficient time on their hands to do what is necessary) can be given the job of coming up with the recommendations to the board.

Remember though, the final decision on appointment is of course for the whole board to agree on.

The next issue is “How will we locate and target the right candidates?” If you can afford it, or can secure the services pro bono, you can try the executive search process. Alternatively you can advertise in suitable publications or forums. And you can tap the various networks which the current directors have.

Whichever route you decide to take, make sure you stick to a consistent process. For example, if you take the search option, then it is important that any potential candidates identified through other sources (like tapping the networks, or the inevitable “I know someone who would be perfect for the board”) are fed into the search pool. This helps counter the effect of the Old Mates Act, which has been responsible for plenty of poor board appointments, whether in commercial organisations or NFPs.

Making the final decision

Your skills analysis process should give you a clear guide to make the decision on whom to appoint. Remember, you are recruiting into your gaps. You will have the concrete set of core business and functional skills to take into account, and the filter of the organisation-specific factors to overlay on the pool of identified people. The last filter is “How will any of our candidates fit in with the dynamic of the current board?” That question may vary if your current board dynamic is not as effective as it should be, and might instead be “How will any of these candidates help us improve the dynamic?” This might be, for example, by increasing diversity on the board.

The last step before formal appointment is the delivery of your sales pitch, developed during the building block process, and a frank discussion with the candidates of the expectations the board will have of its new members. Are your candidates up for it? Really? Believe me, it can be far easier to appoint a new director than to remove an existing one.

The formal resolution for appointment

Check the constitution! There will be a section headed “appointment of directors”, or something similar, which will set out how directors are validly appointed. It may be by the board resolving to fill what is known as a “casual vacancy”, because someone has recently resigned; or it may be by filling an empty spot which has either not been filled for some time, or has never been filled. These two kinds of appointments are usually valid until the next annual general meeting, when the appointees will have to re-elected through the normal AGM process.

But the appointment process can vary widely between constitutions, so check your own very carefully and don’t assume it will be like anyone else’s. The safest route is to use the actual words of the constitution to frame the formal board resolution – for example:

Pursuant to clause 43.1 of the company’s constitution, the board resolves to appoint XYZ as a director of the company, to fill a casual vacancy and to hold office until the end of the next annual general meeting of the company.

The constitution will also specify the maximum number of directors who can hold office at any one time – make sure you won’t be exceeding that maximum.

So that’s it. Good luck with finding the right people for your board, who will add value, enhance the board dynamic, and help your organisation achieve its vision.

The Board Coach

Recruiting NFP Directors Part 3 - Assembling Your Recruiting Materials

With your building blocks in place, you will be ready to assemble the final part of your recruitment materials. There are 3 vital documents which will allow you to approach potential directors with confidence:

• A statement of what the board will expect of new directors. This should have been previously agreed by the board. It should cover matters like the annual board schedule, including commitments outside board meetings such as the annual strategy retreat, if you hold one, and fundraising events; a willingness to align with your organisational values; and preparedness to sign up for the way the board works together, as set out in the board protocol. A reasonable assessment of the amount of time which a new director would need to spend to meet the necessary duties and commitments is also a great help in giving a realistic picture of the job, and in ensuring that the new director will know what they are up for.

• A letter setting out the major terms of the appointment. The letter should be clear on the term for which the new director is being appointed, and a summary of any of the “expectations” which are of a sufficiently formal nature to warrant inclusion.

• The sales pitch which you will present to potential appointees. You need to give candidates a great and compelling story if you want to get the best ones. The sales pitch should cover:

Why we want you – including the skills, experience and personal qualities identified in stage one, the skills analysis; how we found you; why we think you would be a great fit for our board and our organisation

What our organisation does – a summary which can be supported by other accessible written material if necessary

What we can offer you – such as comprehensive board papers, sound management, good risk management, board training and development, or any other strong features you might like to emphasise

“What’s in it for me?” – what a director in your organisation can expect to get out of being involved, beyond just a warm inner glow. This might include exposure to new networks of contacts, the opportunity to receive training or learn new skills, value for your CV or any other tangible positives you can identify.

With these materials assembled, you can now establish the actual recruitment process.

The Board Coach

Recruiting NFP Directors Part 2 - Recruitment Building Blocks

Given the difficulties in finding any not-for-profit directors at all, it can be pretty competitive to attract the best ones to your organisation. You should make your recruitment process as professional, and your offer to potential appointees as attractive, as possible. This means having the right building blocks in place.

The most important recruitment building blocks are these:

• A clear articulation of your organisation’s values and vision. What is its reason for existence, where does it want to make its major impacts, and what will it hold sacred and immutable while doing so? Being able to give a coherent and passionate explanation of these factors will put you well ahead of other organisations in the recruiting race.
• An agreed and explicit document which sets out the role of the board. What areas will it choose to be active in, besides those few functions which the law says it must cover? What roles will it aspire to play, such as being a role model in the sector, or setting the culture and tone for the organisation? What will be the split of responsibilities between the board and management. A clear statement of the role of the board is probably the factor most widely lacking in NFP governance.
• A board protocol on how the board will work together. This should be a clear and agreed statement of the board’s group dynamic, which can range from turning up on time to and being properly prepared for meetings, to being prepared to engage in robust but respectful debate on crucial issues. It should be something from which a potential director can evaluate just what kind of a culture they would be operating in.
• A version of your strategic plan which can be shared, without giving away too much confidential information. It will be very helpful for a potential director to get an idea of what the major strategic challenges will be.
• A current directors’ and officers’ liability insurance policy, with an available summary of important terms and a certificate of currency. Without this, you won’t even be in the race to recruit new directors.

Armed with these building blocks you will be able to embark on the next stage of your recruitment process.

The Board Coach

“Don’t just grab any warm body” - Effective recruiting of directors for NFP boards

Anyone involved with boards of directors in the not-for-profit world knows the challenges involved in finding new directors. A job on an NFP board is invariably unpaid, usually time-consuming, and no less likely to bring potential liabilities with it.

I have been working with four NFP boards over the past couple of months where board composition has been a hot topic. The discussions around the board table usually lead to various incumbent directors saying something like: “I know XYZ, they would be great for our board and they have great experience in [law, finance, marketing or some other impressive occupation]”. There are then at least one or two other such helpful suggestions; the temptation is that given NFP directors are considered to be so hard to find, boards will take any warm body with a halfway-decent CV.

Every time I hear this, I have to intervene with a fervent “WAIT!” It may be better to have a vacancy on the board than fill it with someone who is not right for the job, the board or the organisation.

While recruiting new NFP directors may seem to be a real hurdle, you can put your board in the best position possible to find and attract the best candidates. There are just a few simple rules to follow.

The first rule is: “Only recruit into the gaps”. Before any recruitment process starts, the board should have a session where it looks at the skills, experience, knowledge and personal qualities it will need on the board to deliver the strategic plan, or meet the various strategic challenges the organisation will face, over the next two to three years.

The board should look at the skills and other factors from three perspectives:

Core business – what are the essential activities which the organisation delivers and for which there should be some coverage on the board? Think about the Coles Myer board a little while ago: knowledgeable and experienced people but no-one with solid retail experience.

Functional factors – what skills etc would it be advantageous to have on the board to support the core business? This where professional backgrounds in particular areas can become relevant.

Organisation-specific factors – what personal qualities, philosophies, and mix of these are important to your organisation? These can include diversity of gender, ethnicity, age or background; commitment to the causes your organisation stands for; and resonance with the social need your NFP is seeking to address.

Even an Excel dummy like me can put these various factors into the first column of a spreadsheet, then put each director’s name in the next few columns, and hey: you can now assess which of the various factors are already covered with the board’s current composition – and where the gaps are. These are the gaps into which you should recruit new directors. You may then need to apply one last filter over the gaps – overall fit. What kind of a person do you need to work successfully within the culture and collegiality of your board and your organisation?

Hint 1. – each director will assess the extent to which they might fill the factors identified, but some people are too humble, or might be over-enthusiastic, about their own abilities. It can help to do a peer review of skills, with either the chair or the rest of the board looking at each director’s own assessment.

Hint 2. – having someone external to the board run the identification and assessment process can leave the board to concentrate on the work at hand, and can manage the peer review in a less threatening way.

I’ll cover the remaining simple rules for effective recruiting of NFP directors in subsequent posts.

“The Board Coach”