Assessing my own board performance

How do I know if I've been an effective board member?

So far in our brief self-assessment journey, we've focused primarily on board-level evaluation. While there is much to accomplish from a collective review of our governance performance, it's equally important to take some time to reflect on how we're doing as individual members of that leadership group.

Ideally, we're evaluating and adapting our actions daily. But it also is important to take time, in a more formal setting, to assess our individual contributions to the greater good. Formally asking our board to stop, reflect, and recommit - as individual members - is an essential part of the process.

What types of questions foster the kind of productive self-assessment that leads to enhanced board member effectiveness? How can we help guide reflection that deepens commitment to organizational leadership? I've thought about that and offer several questions to consider posing to your board members. Obviously, asking every question here would be overkill. But they may give you a starting point for either constructing a self-assessment from this basket of possibilities or adapting and expanding to fit your board's specific needs.

Here is an initial list of potential self-assessment questions:

• What skills, perspectives, connections, etc., do I bring to the table?
• What are my unique contributions to this board's work?
• How would I rate my individual performance on the following:
• Attendance at meetings
• Participation in discussions
• Willingness to pose questions that need to be asked
• Willingness to offer counterpoints/different perspectives to board deliberations
• Participation on committees and other focused work groups
• Fulfilling commitments I make
• What is my biggest point of pride so far?
• How have I exercised leadership within the board?
• Do I support the agency financially, at a level that is personally meaningful?
• Where have I fallen short in my board responsibilities? What can I do to change that?
• How have I shared our story with the community? With what outcome(s)?
• What do I need to know/understand better to serve more effectively?
• How do I prefer to gain that knowledge (e.g., face to face training, print or web resources)?
• What am I yearning to do/accomplish before my term ends?
• Would I serve again if asked? Why or why not?

What questions would you add to the pool?

10 ways to assess board performance

This post is part of the occasional "10 ways" series - quick, practical responses to common questions about nonprofit boards and the work that they do.

Now that we understand the value (and challenges) of board self-assessment and we're ready commit, where do we start? Just as there is no one, universal approach to evaluating all governing bodies' performances, there are many ways to introduce assessment into our board processes.

In that spirit, I'd like to offer 10 ways to introduce formal and informal assessment into our board practice. Any one would be a productive step toward embracing the opportunity to reflect on our work, to appreciate our individual and collective strengths and identify growth needs.

(1) Make assessment part of your regular board routine. Schedule formal opportunities to stop, assess and reflect during the year - and do it. Plan to conduct, at minimum, a comprehensive annual assessment of both the board as a whole and individual members. Consider incorporating more frequent checks, perhaps semiannual or quarterly, to give yourselves opportunities to identify areas that require adjustment.

(2) Use the outcomes of your annual assessment to identify future board goals.  If  assessment reveals that board member confidence in their ability to fulfill community outreach responsibilities is low, set a goal to develop those skills for the next year (or whatever time frame you're using). Similarly, if board members express an interest in strengthening their donor stewardship skills, incorporate that need into the group's learning goals.

(3) Make assessment a board responsibility. The board should own this process: the decisions about what to assess, in what format, when, by whom, etc. This isn't a "The ED will nag us until we do it" process. This is a potentially rich and valuable process to build board capacity. If the board takes responsibility for evaluating its own performance, it will have a different - and deeper - meaning for members. Make assessment part of the ongoing responsibilities of the governance committee or other standing board work group. Hold that group accountable for seeing the process through.

(4) Ask the board to recommend issues/questions to be included in its assessment process(es). While there are standard topics and governance responsibilities for which all everyone should be accountable, each board also will have unique goals, concerns, and aspirations. Including them in the benchmarks by which success is measured raises those questions to a higher level. They also will add to the meaningfulness of the data shared, since they represent issues of concern to board members themselves.

(5) Pose a "How are we doing/How do we know?" question ahead of a board meeting. Ask members to bring evidence, pro or con, to support their point. Spend quality time during the meeting sharing and discussing - and committing to build from that foundation.

(6) Add an external twist to number 5. Ask them specifically to gather feedback from external sources - policy makers, donors, clients and former clients, other nonprofits, neighbors, etc. - about the agency's performance. Ask them to share what they learn in a board discussion. Use that feedback, not as a cheap opportunity to criticize the ED or staff, but to reflect on how the board can take a more active role in communicating and sharing the organization's mission and work with an expanding audience.

(7) Build your retreats around big questions. Don't cram those great spaces with giant to do items (no more "write a strategic plan" retreat agendas!). Instead, pose broad questions that build board capacity. Spend quality time focusing beyond the horizon, toward the better future that you describe in your vision. Acknowledge that's it's okay to emerge from the experience with more questions (focused on the big-picture issues of governance).

(8) Take your formal assessments online. Whether you choose a ready-made assessment tool, like Alice Korngold's fantastic Board Vector tool, or choose to create/adopt/adapt your own assessment survey, consider adopting an online format (e.g., SurveyMonkey). There are at least two benefits of doing so. First, the anonymity of an online survey encourages frank and honest answers. No one is handling my responses (noting who was writing in what ink color for comparison after we leave). Second, collection and tabulation are instantaneous. No one needs to calculate percentages. No one needs to keystroke responses to open-ended questions. No one needs to remember how to create charts. The right tool will take care of that for you, in a format that is easy to share electronically.

(9) If you board is big enough (to ensure a basic level of anonymity) - and text-savvy enough - pose a quick-poll question during a meeting. Use an instant polling tool, like PollEverywhere, to engage their brains in a different way and gather quick feedback on an issue before the board. If a computer and projector are handy, create the quick-response poll, instruct the board on how to participate (e.g., text message or web link) and project their responses live. Use those responses to spark a conversation about the results. Perhaps stating the obvious: if your board is small or you have members who are are tech averse or lack access to text technology, this won't be a great option. If our board has five members and only two or three have cell phones (or know how to text), this will be a less-than-ideal option. 

(10) End every meeting with one simple question: How did we advance the mission today/tonight? It's a simple but powerful reminder of the board's purpose. They may be small steps, but board members should be able to identify multiple actions taken to move the organization ever closer to its purpose. If they cannot do so, your board likely is focused on the wrong things when it meets. There is an added benefit to instituting this step into your board routine: members come to expect it and begin to look for that evidence as they interact (and, ideally, turn a more critical eye toward meeting agendas and the ways in which they spend their time).

Self-assessment: The board experience

We may know - because books, consultants and bloggers tell us - that self-assessment is an essential part of board development and accountability. But what do real boards do, or not do, and why?

I posed five questions to readers in my last post, to gain a better sense of the challenges and motivations that impact whether or not nonprofit boards take the time to evaluate their performance. Today, I share highlights from that quick poll, in the spirit of sparking a discussion about what others have shared, what you have experienced, and how we might encourage our boards to make the time to reflect and assess as an ongoing governance priority.

I'll open with the usual disclaimer about what we can and can't do with the data I'm about to share. This is a non-random sample of readers of this blog. We can't generalize results as representative of the larger pool of nonprofit boards. What we can do, as we have done with results of other polls conducted here, is use these results as a starting point for a conversation.

The first question was, "Does your board regularly engage in self-assessment?" I wasn't surprised to find that 65 percent of respondents said no.

I asked the 35 percent who said their boards do include self-assessment in their routine about the primary benefits of that effort. The following chart shows their responses. (Note: Poll takers could choose multiple options.)

I included an option for "other" responses, knowing the six categories I posed couldn't cover the full range of possible benefits. One reader offered an additional reason for engaging in self-assessment, one that may resonate with others: "Help us shift from focus on management details to broad policy questions and discussions."

I wanted to better understand the factors that boards experience as obstacles to engaging in self-assessment. The following chart shows reader responses. Again, multiple answers were possible.

I offered the same option to list additional factors beyond those I posed. One response in particular caught my eye, particularly in light of the findings of research I shared earlier this summer. That response: "E.D. doesn't encourage/value the process." (The gatekeeper role of the board's leadership partner can be a powerful - and a negative - one.)

What continues to be clear, at least according to these responses, is that the real work is two-fold (and completely manageable): ongoing education about the value of self-assessment and expanding the pool of adoptable or adaptable tools to make it easier to do once they make the commitment.

In one of two open-ended questions, I asked respondents to envision what might be uncovered in a board self-assessment. Eighty-five percent offered real or potential outcomes of such a process. This sampling of their responses gives you a sense of the themes that emerged:

• "Disconnects between how we spend time/resources and what our mission actually is"
• "Where we need to strengthen and better ways to communicate with individual board members based on their feedback"
• "Differing interpretations of our mission, expectations of board members/clarifying the board role"
• "Differences/similarities in vision for the organization"
• "Need for more board involvement in board leadership and fundraising"
• "The gap between what the board is doing and what it ought to be doing"
• "1) Need for greater clarity re the role of this particular board in taking the organization forward (as opposed to generic role of the board), 2) Better understand who we need to recruit to strengthen the board"
• "In our experience, self-assessment uncovers new ideas that support the mission...and sometimes helps board members see some opportunities for themselves to participate in a more effective manner"

Note the positive and productive tone of the last bullet point - and wording that suggests it is an actual outcome for a board that has taken this evaluation step. It's a good reminder, from someone with experience, that self-assessment can uncover more than our deep failures.

In the second open-ended question, I asked what self-assessment might accomplish for participants' boards. Following is a sampling of responses:

• "Better key us into our proper roles as policy makers rather than detail managers"
• "Recommitment"
• "An assessment like this helps to uncover what board members truly want to work on and why"
• "Stronger relationships and therefore stronger board, unify behind a SHARED mission, weed out board members that realize they aren't on the same boat as everyone else"
• "Set the direction for how to become more efficient"
• "Better long-range planning to meet identified goals"
• "Encourage some board members to become more engaged, thereby strengthening the board as a whole"
• "Getting everyone on the same page!!"
• "We hope that an annual reflection on accomplishment (both team and for individual board members) will not only help define the next steps forward in the board mission, but also encourage and re-invigorate board members for higher levels of achievement."
• "Re-energize, refocus, board service more rewarding, better use of time, more effective meetings, improved relationships with staff and stakeholders, renewed vision"
• "1) Clarify the role and work of this board in taking this organization forward, 2) help us understand what to expect of ourselves as board members, 3) help us understand whom we need to recruit - with regard to experience, expertise, diversity, networks, etc."

What strikes me about the list - especially within the context of what we learned in the very first question (that two-thirds of respondents' boards do not evaluate their work) - is that it is overwhelmingly positive. The fact it's positive isn't necessarily newsworthy; the question certainly invited such a response. Rather, 80 percent of participants - those who do and do not already conduct board evaluation - envisioned these and similarly productive outcomes of board self-assessment. At least amongst this tiny sliver of the board member population, the potential value of engaging in this work exists.

What are our takeaways from these results? What might we do to increase the percentage of boards that take that first step and try some form of self-assessment? My next post will offer some ideas, but I'd enjoy hearing from readers on this.

Board self-assessment: Factors that impact

As I've continued my own reflection on the value of self-assessment for nonprofit boards, I've wondered: What are the real contributions for those who incorporate it into their governance process, and what are the obstacles for those who have not done so?

To get a better sense of how boards actually use - or don't use - self-assessment in the field, I thought I'd turn to readers for feedback and examples. I'm hoping you'll take a moment to share your experiences via the quick poll below. I'm interested in hearing about what motivates your boards to engage in self-assessment, if they do. I'm interested in learning more about the factors that inhibit board participation in this reflective process.

I'm also interested in hearing more about reader perspectives on how self-assessment might contribute to board performance and effectiveness, whether it's as an integral part of their work or an aspiration. You'll find a couple of open questions at the end, asking for your thoughts about the potential that board self-assessment offers? What might be our collective vision of what is possible?

Please take a moment to respond to all, or part, of the five questions in this brief survey. Please also share the link with fellow board members and others who have board experience and encourage them to respond. While we'll never be able to generalize from this non-scientific poll, the greater the participation, the richer and more illuminating the results will be. I'll report back in a future post.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.