I believe that the special characteristics of church boards virtually guarantee they will be the boards with the most problems. And it seems you agree. The most frequent search term that brings people to my blog, sad to say, is some variant of “dysfunctional church board.” Yes, it is true. The single most viewed post I’ve written is The unique [...]
Checking for blind spots
I think a lot about how a policy board really adds value to an organization. For all the work it takes to maintain a board, you sure want some value from it. I want my board members to treasure their time on our board and to feel they have truly made a significant contribution to [...]
The unique challenges of church boards
Since January I’ve delivered a seminar called Serving as a Board Member right across Canada, and I’ve heard a lot about the problems boards experience. The striking thing I’ve learned from these stories is that the very worst problems seem to occur in churches. I know there are some very good church boards, but I mostly hear about the dysfunctional ones. Why are church boards so [...]
“I didn’t sign up for this!”
Just a short thought today. I’ve sat on a couple of boards over the years, and when it comes time to select a board chair most of the discussion is around a person’s ability to lead a meeting. There are other considerations, but this seems to be the main one. Today we had a case study [...]
“Which governance style is for us?”
The question many people ask about governance models isn’t the one they should be asking. The way I often hear the question, people think the choice is between policy boards, management boards and working boards. Their question usually is, “Which type of board should we have?” as if these types are mutually-exclusive choices. I will be [...]
Rev. John Pellowe, MBA, DMin
