Restructuring Workgroup Meeting

Restructuring Workgroup Meeting Michigan Library Association Friday, August 17, 2007

Mission The Michigan Library Association is a professional organization dedicated to the support of its members, to the advancement of librarianship, and to the promotion of quality library service for all Michigan citizens. Two Primary Purposes To serve as the primary public policy voice and advocate for the interests of libraries, librarians and, indirectly, the public they serve. To provide support for its members in order to continuously improve the quality of library services in Michigan. Governance Structure: enables and empowers you to accomplish your…

Shared Vision By 2008, the Michigan Library Association will be a highly effective, trusted network of libraries, library employees, trustees, friends and supporters working together to support and promote the highest quality library services throughout Michigan. Strategic Priorities Secure public support for libraries and librarians that ensures the funding and policy support necessary to provide quality library services for all Michigan citizens. Achieve our full potential as a dynamic, influential professional organization providing vital information and services to its members. Good Governance: positions you to achieve your…

Characteristics of Good Governance • Participation: providing all with a voice • Transparency: built on the free flow of information • Responsiveness: of institutions and processes to stakeholders • Consensus orientation: differing interests are mediated • Equity: all have opportunities to become involved • Effectiveness and efficiency: produce results that meet needs while making the best use of resources • Accountability: of decision-makers to stakeholders • Strategic vision: a broad and long-term perspective and an understanding of the historical, cultural and social complexities in which that perspective is grounded.

Benefits of Good Governance • People trust your organization • You know where you’re going • Your board is connected to your membership and stakeholders • You get good decisions; people value your work • You have the ability to weather crises • Financial stability

Selecting a Model for MLA Review, discuss and focus conceptual options Staff and consultants prepare draft design for MLA model Workgroup & member input Workgroup process to reach consensus on model

Four Conceptual Models • Policy Governance • Constituent • Entrepreneurial/Corporate • Strategic

Policy Governance Model • Clearly distinguishes between leadership roles of board and CEO • Board role is stewardship on behalf of ‘communities’ • Focuses on vision, mission, values and strategic priorities • Ensures responsiveness to stakeholders and empowers staff

Policy Governance Articulate and document policies on four broad areas: • Ends: Focus is on outcomes and results rather than on means (a staff responsibility). Ends include the organization's vision, mission, values and strategic objectives. • Executive Limitations: Board establishes parameters or boundaries within which the CEO has unlimited freedom. • Board-CEO Relationship: Policies outline the delegation of power from the board to CEO as well as how the board will monitor the performance of the CEO and the organization. • Governing Process: Ensures that the board is attending to its own processes and structures. Policies include expectations of board members, committee structures and the principle of speaking with one voice.

Positive Features • Increased clarity of roles and responsibilities, vision and accountability. • The focus on outcomes and results leads to increased accountability. • An external focus connects the board with other boards and stakeholders. • The leadership role of the board can be satisfying for board members. • Liberates, empowers and supports the chief executive officer. • Board engages in systems activities by scanning the environment, becoming familiar with "big picture" issues as well as major internal trends and entering into partnerships with other stakeholders. • Board takes on the responsibility of ensuring adequate resources are available to accomplish the mission. • Meets external legal requirements. • A familiar and comfortable framework for many organizations.

Downsides • Board and staff relations are vulnerable and disconnected; can interfere with developing a productive board/staff partnership. • The board often feels disconnected from programs and operations. • Staff often mistrust the board's ability to govern because of a perception that the board does not understand the organization's operations. Links between policies, operations and outcomes are often tenuous. • Board or executive may exercise their power in overriding the other's role. Power is concentrated in the hands of a few. • This model can be self-limiting in its ability to embrace evolution and change because it assumes one vision (to be articulated and achieved) and it solidifies/perpetuates the status quo through its policy framework.

Constituent Model • Direct and clear link between the organization's board and its constituents. • Strict policies govern the composition and election/appointment of board members representing specific constituents. • Centralized decision-making with decentralized input. • Board's relationship to the CEO is not always clearly defined and is vulnerable to changing expectations with changing representatives on the board.

Positive Features • Broad base of participation and power is decentralized. • Allows a vision to emerge that is inclusive of constituents' perspectives. • Constituent energy and participation is generally decentralized into committees which are action oriented. • Communication is emphasized because of the need to involve large numbers of diverse stakeholders. • The board tends to have a pulse on "big picture" issues as a result of the broad based input by constituents. • The challenge of dealing with multiple interests and the resulting conflicts is recognized and addressed in a variety of ways.

Downsides • Pressures and demands for communication to be timely, adequate, consistent, clear, accessible, etc. create difficulties in meeting high constituent expectations. • Energy is dispersed throughout a large number of committees and activities and therefore becomes unproductive. • The vision often loses focus and commitment as board members turn over and other interests come in. • Conflict, which is natural, does not always get resolved and can damage relationships. • With representative interests and positions, tendency is to pursue self-preservation rather than shared interests. • The model generally requires some form of written contract that needs to be renewed regularly to keep it in force.

Corporate/Entrepreneurial Model • Often referred to as the business model of governance. • Emphasis on efficiency and effectiveness measures, a culture which expects the survival of the "fittest". • Maintains a constant market orientation to find opportunities and competitive advantage. • Long-term plans are driven by an annual focus emphasizing a short time horizon, versus a longer-term perspective and vision. • Market share and niche dominance are highly valued and an entrepreneurial spirit is pervasive. • "Investors" in the organization are proportionately represented in its governance through a shareholder structure which elects the Board of Directors. • The Chair of the Board of Directors often acts as the Chief Executive Officer of the organization.

Positive Features • Participants' efforts are clearly focused on the "business" of the organization. • The organizational culture explicitly emphasizes efficient and effective work processes. • There is a widespread sensitivity to "business" related changes in the "marketplace“. • Leadership and resources are allocated to recognize and readily adopt best practices.

Downsides • A disproportionate focus on bottom-line returns to one organization which does not ensure focused attention on common marketplace interests or changing social conditions. • The consideration and quality of inter-organizational partnerships are measured by returns to specific investors and not to the collective benefit generated for consumers. • Broad-based societal needs are often discounted. • Systemic social and community changes do not lend themselves to short time horizons for organizational business plans. • There is no particular incentive for innovation on behalf of public gain.

Strategic Governance Model • Enables organization to remain focused, yet flexible to meet changing needs or changing membership. • Based on understanding of purpose and mission. • Features established planning systems that achieve stability while allowing for flexibility. • Exists to identify and achieve the organizational mission, goals and strategic outcomes. • Driven by strategic plans that clearly define expected end-results.

Four Main Functions • Scanning • Planning • Oversight • Adjustment

Scanning • Examines and evaluates the environment in which the profession or industry the association represents operates, to identify issues the organization should address to remain responsive and relevant to its members. Scan results direct the development of the association's strategic plan, within the context of its organizational mission

Planning – strategic and operational • Strategic plans should define: • organizational mission, goals and objectives • strategies for addressing goals and objectives • strategic outcomes to be produced along with timing implications • a system for determining strategic plan priorities [relative importance, most time critical, most deserving of resource allocation (member time, staff time, direct dollars)]. • a system for monitoring progress and making adjustments • Operational planning should, within established strategic priorities, select the programs, services and initiatives that will occur in the coming fiscal year, which must wait and what level of resources will be allocated (member time, staff, direct dollars). The yearly operating budget typically most evidently documents this annual plan.

Oversight – strategic and operational • Strategic oversight includes periodic re-scanning to identify changes in the professional or industry environment and regularly scheduled Board assessment of progress toward achieving strategic plan goals, strategies and desired outcomes. • Operational oversight includes regularly scheduled Board monitoring for program/initiative and financial outcomes and operational safeguards.

Adjustment • Should take advantage of successes/new opportunities and adjusting what is not working or not working as well as anticipated. Types of adjustments might be: • adjusting strategies • adjusting operational programs or activities • discontinuing or sunsetting non-performing programs or activities • adjusting expected outcomes • reprioritizing and reallocating resources • revising operational safeguards

Desirable Characteristics • Focused • Results-Oriented • Skills-Based • Knowledge-Based • Empowered • Accountable • Structurally Effective • Operationally Efficient • A Partnership with Staff

Focused • Governing bodies work primarily at the strategic level. As a whole, the board and its activities should be focused upon: • Vision, mission and goal development (scanning, possibly adjustment) • Public policy and advocacy positions (scanning, possibly adjustment) • Strategic plan development and approval (planning) • Organizational oversight - monitoring outcomes (oversight and adjustment)

Results-Oriented • Governance exists to identify and achieve the organizational vision, mission, goals and strategic outcomes. Success of the board in fulfilling this objective is measured on accomplishment of their stated goals from the initial and ongoing scanning process.

Skills-Based • Governance participants at all levels need to have or acquire specific skills to fulfill their governance responsibilities. Some skills will be important regardless of the governance position held. Other governance positions will require skills unique to the position.

Knowledge-Based • Organizational success takes precedence over individual interests, personal agendas and parochial preference. • Greater reliance is placed on quantitative and qualitative research involving various stakeholder groups and less upon opinion and anecdotal experience of just the governing board members. Additional participant roles, beyond official governance bodies, facilitate knowledge-based decision making.

Empowered • Governing bodies are empowered to produce results. They are given: • Clearly defined outcomes to achieve • Timeframes and progress milestones • Resources - financial and staff support at levels that enable their work • Authority to act within established scope of assigned work, timeframes and resource parameters

Accountable • Governance bodies are held accountable for the work assigned to them. They are expected to produce results and are held accountable for doing so. • Elected and appointed governance participants are held accountable for fulfilling their assigned role within the governing bodies on which they serve.

Structurally Effective • The governing structure is kept to the minimum number of bodies necessary to produce strategic plan results. Additional member participation can come from roles beyond official governance positions. • A governing body exists only when it has some specific assignment to complete or quantifiable outcome to achieve. • Standing committees perform functions that require ongoing (every-year or all-year-long) member expertise. When unable to complete assigned work or their underlying need no longer exists, they are reconfigured or sunsetted. • Project teams, task forces, special committees and other ad hoc work groups are deployed for one-time, intermittent or short-term member effort. They are sunsetted when their assigned work is complete.

Operationally Efficient • Governing bodies are flexible, employing a minimum of procedural rules. They employ the most expedient, cost-effective methods for getting their work done. • Governing bodies regularly self-assess. When their work is not producing adequate results within assigned timeframes, resources, etc., changes are made to get things on course. • The governing body's leader or chair handles individual performance problems expeditiously to keep them from impairing group achievement.

A Partnership with Staff • An association's staff is comprised of skilled, association management professionals and as such are treated as partners in governance. • At a minimum the association chief executive if not the senior management team should be incorporated into all aspects of scanning, planning, oversight and adjustment activities. In short, staff can be relied upon to: • develop information for governing body knowledge-based decision making • provide advice and counsel in the areas of their expertise • coordinate the work of governing bodies • are accountable for results of activities assigned to them • monitor and report on both staff and governance progress.

Design Considerations • Organizational needs • Areas of interest and "business" • Size and complexity • Key stakeholder relationships • Cultural norms, values and accepted traditions • Context and its place in the larger environment • People, their personalities, their capabilities. • Your guiding principles • How much change can MLA tolerate?

Consider the Strategic Model What are the positive features for MLA? What are the potential downsides? What key would need to be addressed/included in a Strategic Board Model for MLA?

Restructuring Workgroup Meeting