Message-Id: <QhTFb0K00WB4B5uYZ9@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Tue,  8 Mar 1994 19:35:12 -0500 (EST)
From: David Schroeder <ds4p+@andrew.cmu.edu>
To: "Rick Meneely" <rickm@kpc.com>
Subject: Re: Reflections
Cc: Outbound News <outnews+netnews.rec.org.sca@andrew.cmu.edu>,
        antir@kwantlen.bc.ca, sca-west@ecst.csuchico.edu,
        carolingia@bloom-beacon.mit.edu, e5@uriacc.uri.edu, sca-reform@MIT.EDU

Commenting on my recent post that talked about cowboys and corpocrats
Anatar notes:

Excerpts from mail: 8-Mar-94 Re: Reflections  by "Rick Meneely"@kpc.com 
 B > In their own words, they've called themselves an "activist" Board.
 B > I think that was a large part of the problem.  They were being
 B > activists in roles that called for conservative trustees.
  
> I disagree.  I WANT a Board that is Pro-Active.  I WANT them to 
> continually try to improve on what we have.  In my opinion their 
> major flaw was not that they reached the conclusions they did 
> on January 22nd, but that they failed to realize that in order 
> to implement any major change within a volunteer organization 
> that they must 'sell' their idea - that a concensus from the 
> membership is necessary to implement anything that large and 
> different. I believe that instead of trying to implement changes 
> by dictating them, they should have brought the problem and their 
> solution to the membership.  They should have said "Here's the 
> Problem" and "Here's our Solution".  If the idea took hold then 
> its implementation could follow.  If however the concensus that 
> came back was "No, try plan B or C instead" then they need to 
> realize that maybe it wasn't such a good idea in the first place.  
> This is still a model for an 'activist' Board, but for one that 
> also understands how a volumteer organization works.

  Anatar makes some interesting points. In _When Giants Learn to 
  Dance_, the book by Harvard business professor Rosabath Moss Kantor
  where I noted the original discussion of cowboys and corpocrats was
  taken, she asserts that the successful corporate managers of the
  future will have to become a blend of corpocrat and cowboy, of
  traditional manager and entrepreneur, to be effective in tomorrow's
  rapidly changing business climate.  So Anatar's call for a wiser,
  but still pro-active Board does sound like an unalloyed blessing.

  But I think applying the standards of competitive corporations
  to the management of nonprofit Boards has only limited utility.
  Suppose the true mission of the Board is to keep itself small
  and out of the way of active, vital, volunteer activity at the
  kingdom and local level.  In that case, I'd love to see the
  Board as a Pro-Active institution constantly seeking out ways
  in which it could make itself smaller and less intrusive.
  Without a substantial amount of perspective and restraint it
  would be all too easy for such a Pro-Active Board to turn in
  the other direction and decide to add affinity credit cards,
  health insurance programs, travel agents, and other absurd
  notions under the mistaken idea that adding such things are
  part of their charter of continual improvement.

  The Corporation really only has a very short list of things
  that it needs to be responsible for.  A great many of them
  are probably more cost effectively handled by an association
  management company.  I can't see that we really want a Board
  that's constantly looking for new things it can do, though
  I'll admit it's probably smart for the Board to look at
  what things it can *not* do any longer without causing
  major problems.

  Adding better ways to communicate with members, like 
  an electronic mail connection or adding credit card
  memberships are pro-active steps that are of the
  right scope.  Deciding not to review lower level
  banishments is another.  But all in all we have
  to be _very_ careful to balance the natural
  tendency of active bodies to increase their
  sphere of influence with our philosophical
  desire to keep the Board small and out of
  the way of the volunteers doing the work
  of the Society.

  I very much enjoyed Anatar's comments and look forward
  to continued debate on these topics.  Feel free to jump
  in any time, friends.

  My best -- Bertram