Boards are routinely belittled in the traditional approach to
governance. As an example, we are told that boards are "part-time
amateurs who oversee full-time professionals." Its the CEO who
commonly assembles the board’s agenda. Nowhere else in an organization
does the subordinate (the CEO, in this case) tell the boss (the
board) what to do.
How can a board find its own voice? Its own authority? If a board
is to take the lead in an organization, it must understand what
the board’s added value is. The board members are trustee-owners,
representatives, Carver proposes in his model, of the moral ownership
of the organization.
The Policy Governance model outlines the job of the board, clearly
differentiating it from the job of management. Once a board has
established its own policies and knows its job, board meetings
become opportunities for the board to get its job done. Gone
is the type of meeting where the board comes together to hear
a succession of staff reports or to "bless" staff decisions and
plans.
A board must be passionate about its cause and challenged by the
demand to communicate with the ownership. They must be consumed
with perfecting their insight into what success would look like
for their organization.
What the Policy Governance board has to say about high-level policy
matters is clearly distinct from what staff is allowed to decide.
The board policies are exclusively the voice of the board and
not generated by staff at all. The board’s agenda is not one submitted
by staff. A board that knows its job knows what it needs to discuss
and to decide. The board is the initiator of the organization
and definitely "in charge."