The Imperfect Board Member - 2026

 

Issue No. 693 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Sept. 30, 2026) admits we all must work with “imperfect” board members—but Jim Brown has refreshed ideas for you. Plus, click here for back issues posted at the new location for John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, including my review of two new leadership books. And check out these bite-sized book summaries (7- to 9-minute videos)—perfect for your weekly staff meeting.   The Imperfect Board Member is the perfect book for your next board retreat or your "10 Minutes for Governance" slot at your next board meeting. 10 Boardroom Shifts Since 2006 Brilliant idea! Take a great book that I’ve recommended to every board I’ve consulted with since 2006—and enrich that book with more resources and practical help. Congrats to Jim Brown for this 20th anniversary expanded edition—just published. The Imperfect Board Member:  Discovering the Seven Disciplines of  Governance Excellence  (20th Anniversary Updated & Expanded Edition) by Jim Brown (Sept. 29, 2026) I’m often asked by nonprofit CEOs and board members, “What’s the best board governance book we should read?” (You already know my answer: “It depends.”) That’s why in 2018-2019, I created my list of “18 Best Board Books.” The Imperfect Board Member is Book #2. (Read my 2006 review. See the list of 18 board books, plus five “bonus books.”) Jim Brown, the founder of OrgHealth, consults with corporate boards, nonprofit boards, and church boards (he’s one brave guy!)—and knows his way around the boardroom. Here are seven reasons you’ll appreciate this 20th anniversary update: #1. Board Members Will Read it! The “fable” format is real life. David, the CEO in this story, wakes up in a cold sweat—six nights, six nightmares. Board members will read and identify with the organizational challenges at work—and at home. (Spoiler alert! A pastor mentors this corporate guy on governance excellence!) #2. Lencioni Loves It! Patrick Lencioni, who wrote the foreword to the book, writes: “Finally, a book about boards that isn’t boring!” (High praise from an author who knows something about writing business fables.) #3. Twenty Years of Change Explained. What’s different now in 2026 versus 2006? Must-read: Chapter 14, “Twenty Years of Change in the Boardroom.” (Brilliant!) #4. Memorable Model. Part 2 of this expanded book drills down on Brown’s “Secret Formula for Organizational Effectiveness” (not secret anymore!) and “The Seven Disciplines of Governance Excellence.” (A colleague who read the book in 2006 can still quote the seven disciplines—because they’re memorable.) #5. New Coaching Highlights. “Compass icons” in the fable spotlight 10 coaching highlights (with application) in Part 3’s short chapters. You’ll be tempted to read these first: “Manipulating the Board,” “Forgiveness Versus Permission,” “Handling Conflict,” and “The Power of Owning Mistakes.” #6. New Nonprofit & Church Board Insights. Read the very practical chapter on “Governing Churches and Charities,” including an affirming section, “What Churches and Charities Can Teach Corporations.” #7. More Book Recommendations! Brown includes a recommended reading list of 15 titles—plus short paragraphs for each book explaining, “Why this book?” (Brilliant.) SO INSIGHTFUL! Brown details 10 shifts in the chapter, “Twenty Years of Change in the Boardroom.” (Why doesn’t every second edition of a book do this?) He notes that the shifts “…form the backdrop for everything boards must navigate today. Each represents both progress and a new layer of complexity.” Aligned with the new coaching highlights in this 2026 update, the shifts address board culture, chair leadership, and the complexity of governing organizations with multiple owner groups. Here are five of the 10 shifts over the last 20 years. (Each shift includes a lesson to be learned.)    • From Compliance to Strategic Stewardship    • From CEO-Controlled Agendas to Shared Leadership at the Top    • From Not Enough Information to Too Much at Once    • From Technology as Infrastructure to Technology as Strategy    • From Annual Evaluations to Continuous Board Learning BOARD BOOK/BOARD RETREAT. If I were still a CEO (I’m saying that a lot lately), I’d create a discussion guide for The Imperfect Board Member and inspire the board to make this their book-of-the-year; or use the guide for pre-reading prior to the next board retreat. (See Tool #13 from ECFA, “Board Retreat Read-and-Reflect Worksheets.”) MORE RESOURCES! Jim Brown also publishes two eNewsletters: [  ] The Imperfect Board eNews (subscribe here) [  ] The Imperfect Church Leader eNews (subscribe here) THE IMPERFECT CEO! Jim Brown is one busy guy. Also in 2026, he wrote The Imperfect CEO: Making the Climb to Organizational Health. [   ] Read my review. [   ] Order from Amazon. [   ] View the interview with Jim Brown on the “Life After Ministry” podcast (31 min.) . [   ] View the summary video (7 minutes) of my review of The Imperfect CEO.   THERE’S MORE! Raise your hand if your board chair has a business card that reads, “Cultural Architect.” Brown believes that every board member helps shape culture, “but the chair is the architect. The best chairs are more than meeting managers. They’re facilitators, tone-setters, and bridge-builders." He adds, “And the chair’s work doesn’t stop when the gavel drops,” because board chairs “see culture as a living system that needs constant tending." This reminded me of David McKenna’s book, Call of the Chair (read my review). He defines nine roles of the board chair: Missionary, Model, Mentor, Manager, Moderator, Mediator, Monitor, Master, and Maestro.  Should the CEO also serve as board chair? (This is common in some companies and organizations, very uncommon in others.) Brown confesses that when he wrote The Imperfect Board Member in 2006, he “sidestepped one of governance’s most loaded debates.” Now in 2026, this gutsy guy writes an entire chapter: “To Chair or Not to Chair: Why Splitting the Roles Makes Sense for Most." (Don’t skip pages 205-206, “Four Common Risks of CEO-Chair Duality” and “Recognizing the Dark Side.”) Bottom Line for Me: The Imperfect Board Member (2026 edition) remains on my “18 Best Board Books” list. Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado, president and CEO of Compassion International, calls this new update “an indispensable guide to governance.” I just ordered the book for the elder board at our church. TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, click on the title for The Imperfect Board Member: Discovering the Seven Disciplines of Governance Excellence (20th Anniversary Updated & Expanded Edition), by Jim Brown.    YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS: 1) What book did you read 20 or more years ago that needs an updated and expanded edition now in 2026? 2) In the foreword to The Imperfect Board Member (2006), Patrick Lencioni wrote, “The author—a friend of mine—often jokes that a greeter at WalMart gets more orientation than most board members ever do. We all know that’s no joke. It’s true for boards of every description. And it’s appalling. Although it sounds extreme, management guru Peter Drucker wrote, ‘There is one thing all boards have in common . . . They do not function.’” QUESTION: How would your three newest board members evaluate the recruitment and orientation process they endured? (There’s help!)          SECOND READS: Fresh Solutions From Classic Books You have changed—and your problems have changed—since you read this the first time! Book #60 of 99: $50 Fine for Boring Meetings! For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring Book #60 of 99 in our series, “Second Reads.” The big idea: REREAD TO LEAD! Discover how your favorite books (and articles) still have more to teach you and the people you’re coaching and mentoring. Unbroken:  A World War II Story of Survival,  Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand (Nov. 16, 2010)   Wait…what? Yes…I’m recommending the page-turner, Unbroken, as an antidote to boring meetings. Learn why.     • Read my review (Issue No. 308, Oct. 2, 2014).    • Order from Amazon.    • Management Bucket #20 of 20: The Meetings Bucket $50 Fine for Boring Meetings! After 30 years of CEO work, I turned in my keys and credit cards at the end of 2005, and there are days I wish I could rewind the video—and get a do-over on my leadership years. For example, I would institute a $50 fine for every boring staff meeting—and I would double the fine for myself if anyone caught me leading an uninspired, ho-hum meeting. Today, I would follow “Pearson’s Radical Wall Poster Team-building Exercise: 4 Easy Steps.” One idea: plan a “Book-of-the-Quarter” event.  P.S. Oops! By the way, if you’re taking notes, in my 99-book journey through “Second Reads: Reread to Lead,” I mistakenly spotlighted Thinkpak - A Brainstorming Card Deck in both #60 of 99 and #23 of 99. (My bad!) So, this is a substitute blog for #60 of 99. (At least I admit my mistakes!)   CLICK HERE FOR BOOKS BY JOHN     View the video summary of “Mistake #4: Not Learning How to Listen. Way too late in life, I’m learning ‘the case for listening’” (8 min.). (Lee Strobel was talking. I wasn't listening. LOL.) See the workbook, Mastering Mistake Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—and What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook), by John Pearson with Jason Pearson. NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here at John Pearson's Buckets Blog. The Imperfect CEO View the summary video (7 minutes) of John’s review of The Imperfect CEO: Making the Climb to Organizational Health, by Jim Brown. (Read the review.) BONUS! As of today, 32 video podcasts (7 to 9 minutes each) are posted here. Perfect life-long learning snippets for your weekly staff meeting. MORE RESOURCES: • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon  • WEBSITE: Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations • PODCASTS: John Pearson's Buckets Podcasts  Transforming Church Boards “Perhaps the most important difference between corporate governance and church board leadership is the task of discernment.” That’s from Book 3 of 3 in the series, Transforming Church Boards: For Churches in Transition (read my review), by Dennis Baker, David C. Fisher, and John Vawter (yes, the same guy who wrote the hilarious golf book!). For more book reviews, visit the Pails in Comparison Blog.

3 LOL Books

 

Issue No. 480 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (July 14, 2021) recommends three LOL books for your summer lite reading from a comedian, a best-selling joke book author and cartoonist, and a historian. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for the new book from John Pearson and Jason Pearson, Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned. See Mistake #6 below. What book will you pick? Funny, funnier, or funniest? 3 LOL Books for Summer Lite Reading! It’s summer here in the Northern Hemisphere—and time for some lite reading (or listening). Pick one of these three LOL rib-ticklers: LOL #1 - A COMEDIAN’S PRAYER BOOK British comedian Frank Skinner pairs his superb imagination to his faith journey and delivers (okay I’ll say it) a laugh-out-loud 106-page delight, A Comedian’s Prayer Book. He confesses, “The title is a worry, isn’t it?” But no worries. No lightning strikes if you read it. It’s deep and wide—LOL-funny with poke-in-the-ribs (pie-in-the-face?) theological musings. He prays: “One of the joys of prayer is that you get all my references. I could do a joke about El Greco or Efrem Zimbalist Jr, but there’ll never be any need for footnotes. It’s beautiful. You’re the audience I’ve always dreamt of.” Using theatrical terminology, Skinner sets the stage: “…I’ve tried to retain the bare candour of the simple rehearsal-room improvisation, but infused it with all the production values required to make it a passable public entertainment. I’ve taken my convictions, my questions, my fears, my doubts, my elations, and presented them in what I think is an eavesdropper-friendly form. Hell, judgement, atheism, money, faith and the X-Men all feature.” “So, this rich man, camel, eye-of-a-needle thing.” It’s probable that this thinking-man’s comedian has plumbed the depths of Matthew 19:24 far deeper than most of us. In his prayer, he admits “Yes, I have a few bob in my pocket…” so looking for loopholes, he wonders, “Imagine if there’s one word missing from the Gospel text, an exhausted scribe rendering an understandable error.” Maybe it really reads, “It’s easier for a camel eyelash to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into Heaven? At last, I could enjoy some of this money I’ve worked so hard for.” Noting that the TK Maxx stores in Britain sell bargain buddhas (yet also flyswatters!), he suggests to the Lord, “So why didn’t I see a single Jesus for sale? I’m not here to lecture you about marketing, but it worries me that we’ve lost so much ground with the I’m-up-for-a-little-bit-of-spirituality crowd.” His prayer continues: “I know our biggest seller is the crucifix and, of course, it’s been a Christian symbol for two thousand years. It is an enormous inspiration to me, personally, and I have, more than once, wept as I’ve knelt before it. I just wonder if it’s a symbol with something of a specialist appeal? Has an interior designer ever suggested a room needed something torture-themed?” (He suggests a more “user-friendly” symbol for people outside the Faith.) He prays for “the chosen, the accepters and refusers. This is the kind of work I feel suited for, petitioning you on behalf of the heroes and the deserters, my eyes to the floor, last-three-pews.”He’s comfortable (but with guilt)—like many of us—with a self-conscious level of church involvement: “I’m a last-three-pews Catholic. I don’t want to be organising the Harvest Festival. I put money on the plate, but I don’t even want to be the guy who takes the plate around.” Warning: your second read through A Comedian’s Prayer Book delights/convicts even more:    • The honesty—extraordinary.    • The humility—quotable.    • The humor—off-the-charts. (I’d fly to London for an evening of conversation between Frank Skinner and Father Darrin Merlino, CMF, author of 30 Days Unplugged: How a Catholic Priest Turned Off His iPhone and Took a Call From God.) On the Lord’s Prayer (“It’s that bit when you conduct an impromptu prayer-workshop, offering advice and examples for the would-be kneeler.”), this comedian prays: “When someone asks me, directly, about doing a charity gig or opening a fete or something, I always tell them to speak to my agent. It gets me off the hook. I like the idea that, when you returned to Heaven, the Father said, ‘Did you tell them about prayer?’ and you said, ‘Yes. I told them to call you’. I imagine there was a resulting loud creak, like an oak tree splitting, as the Almighty’s eyebrows were raised, followed by a hurricane-like sigh.” Enjoy this special book—and don’t miss Skinner’s running gag, “The Devil has all the best tunes,” deployed humorously across a hundred LOL pages. Click here to view a six-minute interview with the author, excerpted from the BBC’s Song of Praise telecast. Click here to view a BBC interview with Frank Skinner (6 min.). To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for A Comedian’s Prayer Book, by Frank Skinner. LOL #2 - LAUGHTER THERAPY: GOOD MEDICINE TO MAKE YOUR HEART GLAD After COVID (we pray it’s “after” asap)…we’ll all need therapy and—just in time—my favorite joke book guru and bestselling author, Bob Phillips, has teamed up with cartoonist Jonny Hawkins to deliver the perfect summer read, Laughter Therapy: Good Medicine to Make Your Heart Glad. Here’s a funny one from the 168 pages of hot-off-the-press jokes and cartoons: SHOCK! “A minister was asked to inform a man with a heart condition that he had just inherited a million dollars. Everyone was afraid the shock would cause a heart attack and the man would die. “The minister went to the man’s house and said, ‘Joe what would you do if you inherited a million dollars?’ Joe responded, ‘Well, Pastor, I think I would give half of it to the church.’ “And the minister fell over dead.” To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Laughter Therapy: Good Medicine to Make Your Heart Glad, by Jonny Hawkins and Bob Phillips. And thanks to Bob for sending me this hilarious review copy! LOL #3 - HUMORISTS: FROM HOGARTH TO NOEL COWARD Here’s a third LOL option for your summer reading. Humorists is a very satisfying book/comedic journey from historian Paul Johnson who channels W.C. Fields: “We know what makes people laugh. We do not know why they laugh.” (Read my review from April Fools’ Day 2015.) Johnson, with his unique style of short historical chapters, elegant writing, and deep insights, delivers a cavalcade of comedy—while spotlighting an amazing list of humorists and their secret formulas for making us laugh.  3 CLERGYMEN DON’T WALK INTO A BAR. If you’re looking for a joke book, this is not it. If you’d enjoy a deep dive into a British historian’s hunches on humor—have at it. Johnson profiles 15 humorists including Benjamin Franklin, G.K. Chesterton, Toulouse-Lautrec, W.C. Fields, Laurel and Hardy, The Marx Brothers, James Thurber, Noel Coward, and others. He includes Groucho’s famous line, “I don’t want to belong to a club which would have me as a member.” I started at the back of the book with Johnson’s four-page color commentary on how he came to write Humorists. Fascinating! (And...my thanks to David Curry, who often makes me laugh, for recommending this and all of Paul Johnson's books.) To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Humorists: From Hogarth to Noel Coward, by Paul Johnson. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (7 hours).  YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS: 1) Comedian Frank Skinner prays and affirms Jesus’ request that “when we do charitable works, we should do them in secret.” His prayer acknowledges, “This advice makes complete sense, but it has, nevertheless, almost certainly cost me an MBE [Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire].” LOL! Okay, colleagues—let’s have a gut-check discussion about our motivations for charitable giving and acts of service. Is our generosity genuine? #2. Skinner prays further, “Early Christianity feels like a thin person’s game. Hence ‘enter by the narrow gate’. That would certainly explain why five loaves and two fishes was more than enough for the five thousand—‘Thanks, but I don’t really do bread’. I wish the Bible gave a name to the first fat Christian. It must have been like when Heaven’s entrance-conditions were broadened to include the Gentiles.” LOL! Do your prayers include humor? Does God laugh?     In 2004, the staff at CMA (now CLA) awarded John the first ANNUAL MEATLOAF AWARD—not exactly an honor (per Pearson’s Mistake #6).   MISTAKE #6 of 25:  Prioritizing Convenience Over Generosity  Insights from Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned “I failed to inspire and give permission for the staff to call audibles.” That’s the subtitle of Mistake #6 in the new book by John Pearson with Jason Pearson. Too focused on production, John had not yet read the mistake-making insights from Leadership for Dummies, and this wisdom from Ken Blanchard and Don Shula: “Winning coaches make their teams audible-ready.” For Mistake #6, John shares what he learned from two books:    • Leadership Smarts: Inspiration and Wisdom from the Heart of a Leader, by Ken Blanchard    • The New One Minute Manager, by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson, MD   Click here to view the list of all 25 mistakes and read the introduction to Mastering-Mistake Making. To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—And What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook), by John Pearson with Jason Pearson. For supplementary resources, click on John's  "Bucket" book and workbook below.                      JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Do your communication pieces include appropriate doses of humor—or is it stale, corny, or confusing? To explore the art and science of appropriate humor, contact Pearpod Media (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).  NEXT ISSUE! MISTAKE #7: Minimizing Murphy’s Law. I was not yet a believer that “If anything can go wrong, it will.” Order from Amazon.  MORE RESOURCES: • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon  • WEBSITE: Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations • PODCASTS: John Pearson's Buckets Podcasts

2 Leadership Books

 

Issue No. 692 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Sept. 25, 2026) asks if you should read another leadership book—or use the money for lunch? Plus, click here for back issues posted at the new location for John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, including my review of A Talent for Giving: Creating a More Generous Society That Benefits Everyone. And check out these bite-sized book summaries (7- to 9-minute videos)—perfect for your weekly staff meeting.   Another leadership book? Are you serious, John? You need help!    "The Messy Everyday Reality" Really, Pearson? The world needs two more books on leadership? Well…perhaps. Read my short reviews of two new books—and then you decide:    • Read none, one, or both?    • Delegate your reading?    • Or announce to your spouse or a colleague: “Instead of buying another book, I’m taking you out to lunch today!” The Catalyst CEO:  Why CEOs Can't Lead Transformation Alone —And What the Best Do Instead by Constantine G. Alexandrakis (Sept. 22, 2026) The Panoramic Leader:  How Great Leaders See Differently Cornelia Choe and Marshall Goldsmith (July 7, 2026) THE CATALYST CEO Favorite Chapter: The introduction. Really! Read that and you’re hooked. One of the author’s team members at Russell Reynolds (the global leadership company) writes about the “ghosts” of your predecessors, “who somehow seem to get wiser and taller the moment they leave office.” LOL! Favorite Quote: “To be clear, this book isn't intended to be some grand thesis on transformation. The world already has plenty of those. McKinsey, BCG, PwC, and others have written thousands of pages full of strategies, models, and insights about how organizations change. Most of them are excellent. But what they don't often capture is the human part: the messy everyday reality of how you get your teams to actually own the transformation journey and see through it." Favorite Takeaway: Every chapter concludes with a summary, “The Transformation Ledger.” More zingers than you can count—and these are just from Chapter 1, “Strike the Match.” (Required reading.)    • “If you don’t define the burning platform, someone else will, usually a journalist.”    • “You can’t outsource urgency; the CEO has to feel it, and make others feel it, too.”    • “Comfort is more dangerous than competition.”    • “Manufactured urgency beats manufactured excuses.”    • “If everyone looks calm, you may be leading them into irrelevance.”    • “Transformation is a muscle, not a miracle.”    • “The real enemy is rarely outside the building; it’s the voice that says, ‘We’ve always done it this way.’” Favorite Question: From Chapter 10, “What I Wish I’d Known About Becoming a Catalyst CEO,” the author asks, “Do you see your role as the ultimate decision-maker, or the person who enables better decisions?” (That’s just one of eight poke-in-the-rib questions in this final chapter—another must-read.) I’m guessing he’s read one or both books by Dennis Bakke, Joy at Work (2006 book-of-the-year) and/or The Decision Maker (read my review, “The Problem Was Me.”) Watch for My 2nd Review! I just might convince you that Chapter 2, “Get the Board Onboard” will be your favorite chapter.    • When Greg Creed became the CEO of Yum! (KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, etc.), he admits that he “could toss out a hundred ideas before breakfast.” But through new CEO eyes, he faced a board-approved “sprawling list of 36 priorities that the company was expected to deliver.” (Must-read: how he reduced that list to four!)    • “Brutal simplicity beats polite abstraction. A hard truth lands faster than a hundred charts. If it stings, it sticks.”    • “If you don’t translate, you don’t persuade. Boards don’t want 50-page decks; they want a story they can tell themselves on the car ride home.”    • Read the research: “Global Board Culture and Director Behaviors Study.” THE PANORAMIC LEADER Favorite Chapter: “Expertise can sow the seed of blindness,” is just one of dozens of wake-up alarms in Chapter 4, “Mindset First.” In addition to detailing the creativity of the Spanish restaurant, El Bulli, authors Cornelia Choe and Marshall Goldsmith deliver a stunning graphic on page 81, “When Mastery Becomes Risk – The Hidden Cost of Unconscious Competence.” The four levels up to the mountain top:    • Unconscious Incompetence (the bottom of the mountain)    • Conscious Incompetence    • Conscious Competence    • Unconscious Competence (the top of the mountain—yikes!) Favorite Quote: (Marshall Goldsmith is no slouch! I named What Got You Here Won’t Get You There my 2013 book-of-the-year, thanks to Gordon Flinn.) Yet "the World's #1 leadership thinker and executive coach" transparently shares the feedback he received from his mentor. Dr. Paul Hersey told him, “You are completely screwing up. You are selling the same thing day after day after day. You are not thinking, you are not writing, and you are not developing new material. If you continue doing what you are now, you will have a successful life, but you will never become the person you could be—and you will regret it. You can be more.”  Favorite Warning: (Maybe? Maybe not? Read another leadership book?) “According to research published by the Corporate Executive Board, at least half—somewhere between 50 percent and 70 percent—of new executives fail within their first 18 months on the job. That number is as shocking as it is catastrophic, for both the leaders who are affected by this silent epidemic and for the organizations they lead.” Favorite Question: “How often do I actively seek out contradictory information or dissenting opinions to guard against confirmation bias in my personal decisions?” Watch for My 2nd Review! I made more than 30 notes for my review but I promised a short review today. So I’m planning a second review later this year. Watch for:    • Yes, you need to view the dance floor from the balcony, but you also need to invite others to join you on the balcony—“people who see the world differently”—and can spot the “gatecrashers” you may be ignoring. (This reminded me of Ram Charan’s “perceptual acuity dinners.”)    • Why, when co-author Cornelia Choe received an honorary Ph.D. from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, she led a standing ovation for the bottom half of the class!    • Yikes. Why Apple pulled the plug on their $10 billion project to build a fully autonomous car. (The authors name the culprit: the core problem at Apple—and yes, pun intended.) SO…read one book, two books, delegate your reading…or buy lunch? TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, click on the titles for: [   ] The Panoramic Leader: How Great Leaders See Differently, by Cornelia Choe and Marshall Goldsmith.  [   ] The Catalyst CEO: Why CEOs Can't Lead Transformation Alone—And What the Best Do Instead, by Constantine G. Alexandrakis. Listen on Libro (6 hours, 50 minutes). (And thanks to the publishers for sending review copies.)         YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS: 1) Cornelia Choe and Marshall Goldsmith write, “Leaders don't fail for lack of intelligence. They fail because they're navigating with partial maps. We call this perspective blindness—the tendency to mistake an incomplete view of reality for the whole. In an increasingly volatile world, that mistake compounds quickly. Panoramic leadership is a strategic advantage.” QUESTION: What are you missing? Who should read The Panoramic Leader? 2) Constantine G. Alexandrakis quotes Mark Twain, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” QUESTION: How are you going to find out what you know that ain’t so? 3) Click here for my favorite cartoon, plus mini-reviews of six more leadership books including True North: Leading Authentically in Today's Workplace, Emerging Leader Edition, by Zach Clayton and Bill George. Who will read and report on one of these books?          SECOND READS: Fresh Solutions From Classic Books You have changed—and your problems have changed—since you read this the first time! Resource #60 of 99: Thinkpak: A Brainstorming Card Deck For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring Resource #60 of 99 in our series, “Second Reads.” The big idea: REREAD TO LEAD! Discover how your favorite books (and articles) still have more to teach you and the people you’re coaching and mentoring. Thinkpak:  A Brainstorming Card Deck by Michael Michalko (June 1, 2006)   Imagine being called “one of the most highly acclaimed creativity experts in the world.” That’s Michael Michalko, who organized a team of NATO intelligence specialists and international academics in Frankfurt, Germany, to research, collect, and categorize all known inventive-thinking methods.”    • Read my review (Issue No. 261, Nov. 26, 2012)    • Order from Amazon.    • Management Bucket #20 of 20: The Meetings Bucket The result: the “S.C.A.M.P.E.R." process. This fun-to-use brainstorming card deck has 56 cards including two instructional cards, four or five cards for each of the nine key processes, plus seven cards with creative ways to evaluate ideas. It’s a brilliant instant brainstorming system. But caution! It could be dangerous to your boring, status quo meetings!   CLICK HERE FOR BOOKS BY JOHN     View the AI-generated summary of “Mistake #3: Reading Too Narrowly—Stuck in My Lane. I should have read a book on ‘how to read a book’ 50 years ago.” (8 minutes). See the workbook, Mastering Mistake Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—and What I Learned (10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning Workbook), by John Pearson with Jason Pearson. NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here at John Pearson's Buckets Blog. Learning to Lead View the AI-generated summary video (8 minutes) of John’s 2019 book-of-the-year, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead, by Jim Mattis and Bing West. (Read the review.) BONUS! As of today, 30 video podcasts (7 to 9 minutes each) are posted here. Perfect life-long learning snippets for your weekly staff meeting. MORE RESOURCES: • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon  • WEBSITE: Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations • PODCASTS: John Pearson's Buckets Podcasts  Finding Lost Golf Balls! John Vawter (author, pastor, coach to pastors, and very funny guy) reports that American golfers lose 300 million golf balls per year! His hilarious book is now in paperback. Your golfing friends will love this! Just 61 pages. Read my review. View the YouTube video summary.

4 Steps for Board Member Recruitment

 

Issue No. 260 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Oct. 30, 2012) features a new governance toolkit for your next board meeting. The resource from ECFA includes a short DVD and viewing guides for each board member. Plus check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Board Recruitment: Don't Propose Marriage on Your First Date! A Chinese proverb says, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.” That’s also relevant counsel for your board member recruitment process.  The best time to discern board member criteria and qualifications is before you invite inappropriate people onto your board. But moving from “slot-filling” to a thoughtful discernment process is not easy.   There’s help!  The new ECFA Governance Toolbox Series has launched and the first title in the series is “Recruiting Board Members: Leveraging the 4 Phases of Board Recruitment—Cultivation, Recruitment, Orientation and Engagement.”   This “View-Inspire-Engage” toolbox includes a 13-minute DVD, 12 Board Member Read-and-Engage Viewing Guides, and a Facilitator Guide with just-in-time help to engage your board on this fork-in-the-road core competency.  The Facilitator Guide provides three discussion options:     Option 1: 15-30 minute board discussion    Option 2: 30-60 minute discussion    Option 3: Board Retreat (or a 2-hour session)   The fast-moving DVD features a short In-the-Trenches Board Story on recruitment: “The Shortest Board Term in the History of the World.”  It’s humorous, but poignant. Perhaps your board members will see themselves in the “got-the-binder-joined-the-board” video clip.   When viewing the video, each board member will follow along with the colorful 20-page Read-and-Engage Viewing Guide—and will then interact with the 27 self-assessment questions from the four phases of board recruitment.  Example:   SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS: How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statements?   CULTIVATION: “We follow the best practice of ‘dating’ a board prospect—over an appropriate period of time—before ‘proposing marriage.’”   CULTIVATION: “We ensure that a board prospect’s spouse, family (and sometimes employer) is aware of the ‘time, talent and treasure’ requirements of board service.”   RECRUITMENT: “Compared to the due diligence our senior leaders exercise when hiring staff, our board exercises a high level of due diligence when discerning a board prospect’s suitability for board service.”   RECRUITMENT: “We go slow and rely on the 18- to 36-month cultivation process by encouraging potential prospects to serve in key volunteer roles to assess their diligence and faithfulness.”   ORIENTATION: “Our orientation process includes required reading of at least one governance book, such as The Imperfect Board Member, by Jim Brown, or Owning Up: The 14 Questions Every Board Member Needs to Ask, by Ram Charan.” (Read the blog series: 14 posts.)   ORIENTATION: “Our orientation process involves at least 5 to 10 hours of orientation, over a period of several months, and concludes with a written or online feedback survey.”   ENGAGEMENT: “We know and leverage ‘The 3 Powerful S’s’ (Spiritual Gifts, Strengths and Styles) of our board members. We are also students of our CEO’s unique strengths and giftedness—and his/her preferred working style.”   ENGAGEMENT: “We can point, with delight, to numerous examples of how God-honoring board members—fully engaged—have leveraged their giftedness to help us make strategic, fork-in-the-road, spiritually discerning decisions to the glory of God!”   These are just 8 of the 27 questions listed in the toolbox. In addition, there is a starter page on board qualifications, “Board Nominees Must Meet Our 6 Ds Criteria.” They include: 1) Discerning Decision-Maker, 2) Demonstrated Passion, 3) Documented Team Player, 4) Diligent and Faithful Participant, 5) Doer (he or she “walks the talk” and reference checks affirm a God-honoring lifestyle and character), and 6) Donor.   The Facilitator Guide provides a link to a hidden webpage with bonus resources and templates, such as a sample table of contents (31 tabs) for a Board Nominee Orientation Binder, plus “The Board Bucket” chapter from my book, Mastering the Management Buckets.  I’ve worked with ECFA on the concept and writing of the first two toolkits—so I recommend them highly!  More titles are coming.   To order from ECFA, click on this link: ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 1:  Recruiting Board Members.  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) The DVD in the ECFA Governance Toolbox Series quotes Elton Trueblood, “Pious shoddy is still shoddy.” How would you describe your board’s competencies in each of the four phases of: Cultivation, Recruitment, Orientation, and Engagement? Shoddy? Pious Shoddy? Excellent?  2) In the Recruitment phase, the toolkit suggests that a prospect, prior to serving on the board, should already be a generous giver per Matthew 6:21, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” The viewing guide notes, “Many organizations define ‘generous’ as prioritizing your organization in the Top-3 of a person’s annual giving. Board members at all income levels can be generous.” What is our board’s expectation (or policy) on board member generosity?   Honing the Smithereens Out of a Perfectly Adequate System Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit One of the big ideas in Chapter 18, The Systems Bucket, in my book, Mastering the Management Buckets, is to resist the urge to tinker endlessly to perfect the flawless system. Perfection is not the goal.   It’s not always prudent to wait until all your ducks are in a row.  Sometimes even systems people must agree that “good is good enough” and it’s time to launch the project. Too much tinkering to get it “right” may create an unintended consequence—overhead overload.   Some of your team members are systems zealots and have overused skills. Some may hone the smithereens out of a perfectly adequate system. Others, addicted to perfection, rarely finish a project.  You may have a team member—a genius—who is unable to tolerate non-geniuses. “Why don’t they get it?” So, what should you do?   Read Chapter 18 and check out the resources on the Systems Bucket webpage, including a unique add-water-and-stir book that is amazingly simple, yet profound. FYI: For Your Improvement: A Guide for Development and Coaching, from two feedback experts.        MORE RESOURCES: • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon  • WEBSITE: Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations • PODCASTS: John Pearson's Buckets Podcasts  NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here at John Pearson's Buckets Blog ECFA Blog on “Governance of Christ-centered Organizations”   Read John's blog post, "More Huckster Than Holy?" and check out the new ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 1: Recruiting Board Members (DVD and Viewing Guides).