Trust

 

Issue No. 323 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (April 14, 2015) highlights a new book, Trust, by Dan Busby. He quotes what Winston Churchill said of Stanley Baldwin: “He occasionally stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.”   The Low-Trust Penalty  Dan Busby knows a thing or two about high-trust organizations. Ditto low-trust nonprofits. In low-trust organizations, Busby warns, you’ll see:    • Internal dissension. “Without trust, the office dissension machine runs at full speed—and divides a ministry against itself.”    • Disengagement.  Staff work in silos and “they shift from joyful service to turf protection.”    • Turnover. “When trust is low, turnover is disproportionately high—ministries lose the people they least want to lose.”    • Fraud. “Low trust encourages a small theft; if they don’t get caught, they may take it to the next level.” Trust me. In the first 10 pages of Busby’s hot-off-the-press book, Trust: The Firm Foundation for Kingdom Fruitfulness, you’re hooked—and convicted. “The largest penalty paid by Christ-centered ministries is the ‘low-trust’ penalty.” But dozens of authors (hundreds, maybe) have harangued leaders to build high-trust organizations. They are insightful and helpful—books like The Speed of Trust, by Stephen M.R. Covey, and The Advantage, by Patrick Lencioni (see his five-level pyramid with “trust” as the foundation). So what’s the big deal about another “trust” book? This one, with chapter and verse, delivers a blueprint for building a biblical high-trust organization. This one, with page-turning insights, builds the case with a biblical framework (that’s worth repeating—a biblical framework) and practical, practical examples of the foundational building blocks of high trust cultures.  This one is not formulaic or flaky—it’s formative. Examples:    • Why is trust so important? Read three stunning stories from givers.    • On “The Tone of Trust,” there are eight teamwork examples from the Old and New Testaments, noting that trust starts at the top. (Raise your hand if you’ve ever given a team-building talk using Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from Daniel 3.)    • “We ignore perceptions at our peril,” notes the author, so his short chapter on “Perceptions” includes “Ten Major Issues Can Lead to Misperceptions.” (The list: compensation, fringe benefits, intellectual properties, family members paid by the ministry, related-party transactions, and five more.) Elaborating on perceptions, Busby quotes Wayne Dyer: “Your reputation is in the hands of others. That’s what reputation is. You can’t control that. The only thing you can control is your character.” The quotations, by the way, are numerous and memorable—over 100 for your PowerPoints, speaking notes, coffee break conversations, and tweets: “Our problem as leaders is we do everything we know to do.   That’s not enough.   We need to do everything God wants us to do.”   (Richard Blackaby)   •    “A Christ-centered ministry that lacks trust is like a teenager running through a fireworks factory with a lit blowtorch.  It isn’t whether something is going to blow up—it’s just a matter of when.”  (Busby) •    “Leadership is an achievement of trust.”  (Peter F. Drucker) •    “Trust is the starting point for all healthy relationships, the fuel for team ministry, and the cornerstone of group effectiveness.” (Stephen Macchia) •    “Trust is the emotional glue that binds followers and leaders together.” (Warren G. Bennis) •    “The perception of a conflict of interest can be just as damaging to a ministry’s reputation as an actual conflict.”  (Busby) In 21 short chapters, Busby enriches our understanding of trust in four major areas—with a simple, but powerful premise: “Christ-centered ministries with Trusted Governance, Trusted Resource-raising, and Trusted Resource Management experience elevated Kingdom outcomes.”     As the president of ECFA (Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability), Busby inspires over 1,900 Christian ministries to meet ECFA’s exceedingly high “Seven Standards of Responsible Stewardship™”—not once, but every day. It’s not a one-and-done accreditation—annual renewals and documentation are required. And get this: ECFA is the nonprofit sector’s only pass/fail approach to accountability and accreditation. Building the case for third party accreditation of ministries and churches in the chapter on “Verifiable Accountability,” we read this:  “A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody,” wrote Thomas Paine, “ought not to be trusted by anybody.” And speaking of firm foundations, the book notes Michael Armstrong’s visual metaphor: “The ancient Romans had a tradition.  Whenever one of their engineers constructed an arch, as the capstone was hoisted into place, the engineer assumed accountability for his work in the most profound way possible; he stood under the arch.”   Busby (who aspired to be a baseball umpire and has umpired hundreds of games, including at the college level) has great insights on rule-keeping, yet his chapter on “Risk Navigation” gives grace! • “If no one ever took risks, Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor.” (Neil Simon) • “People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.  People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.”  (Peter F. Drucker) Trust me. This book is jam-packed with biblical wisdom (not proof-texted) and in-the-trenches experience by a stellar Christian leader who has been named by the Nonprofit Times as one of the 50 Most Powerful Nonprofit Leaders in each of the last five years. You’ll appreciate the substance and the heart—our motivation for high-trust cultures is to elevate Kingdom outcomes. I must add these teasers before I close:    • Six descriptors of Selfless Leaders versus six labels for Selfish Leaders (page 57)    • Ten traits of courageous leaders and why courage is a building block of trust (page 70)    • Ten bullet points on obstacles to boardroom harmony (“when problem-makers outnumber problem-solvers”)    • Five myths about nonprofit finances (“Myth #2. Ministries should always balance revenue and expenses.”)    • Worth-the-price-of-the-book: “A Board Prayer” (pages 86-89). Note: One of my CEO friends has inspired his board to pray this prayer at the beginning of every board meeting. The book includes a short study guide with “9 Ideas for Inspiring Your Board and Staff to Build Trust Into Your Ministry’s DNA.” The fourth idea: “Share the Trust book with one of your stakeholders (not an ‘insider’). Recruit a donor or a key volunteer to read the book—and then meet with your board and/or senior team and share his or her thoughts.” Still not convinced? John Whitney, a prof at Columbia Business School, says that “mistrust doubles the cost of doing business.” Busby reasons in his chapter on “Minimizing Fraud” that a high-trust focus will save you money. “Fraud is a persistent risk that doesn’t discriminate by size or type of organization.  Fraud is an equal-opportunity problem.” This is must-reading. To order from Amazon, click on this title: Trust: The Firm Foundation for Kingdom Fruitfulness. Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) Max De Pree: “When things go awry, trust powers the generators until the problem is fixed.” Does your team have adequate trust to fix big problems? #2. Dan Busby: “Verifiable accountability is not a suggestion, it is the principle Jesus taught the disciples—and us!” If our nonprofit ministry or church is not an accredited member of ECFA—why not? NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to this blogsite. We Scrutinize Our Donor Methodologies    As we cycle through the 20 buckets, here is the core competency in The Donor Bucket, Chapter 11, in Mastering the Management Buckets. “We believe that extravagant generosity is the biblical norm, not the exception. We challenge donors to give liberally to kingdom causes. We urge prayerful giving to God’s work, not for tax benefits nor budget needs. We scrutinize our methodologies not against what works, but against God-honoring principles.”  Note: Chapter 17, “Honoring Giver Intent,” in Trust: The Firm Foundation for Kingdom Fruitfulness, by Dan Busby, includes “The Five Commandments of Giver Intent,” along with six pitfalls. Busby writes, “How a ministry fulfills a giver’s intent regarding specified gifts sends a strong message about whether a ministry can be trusted.” For more resources and ideas on building trust with givers, visit The Donor Bucket webpage. MORE STUFF! • 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 • PODCAST: John Pearson's Buckets Podcast  ECFA BLOG on “Governance of Christ-centered Organizations” – Add your thoughts and comments to John Pearson’s latest blog, "There's an Elephant in the Room--But Let's Just Keep the Peace."

Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom

 

Issue No. 373 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Nov. 30, 2017) is a tad self-promotional, but only 50 percent. Read the new book by Dan Busby and yours truly. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies). Boardroom Bloopers and More News Flash! There’s way too much confusion in the trenches on the appropriate roles and responsibilities of the board of directors: • New board members are often overwhelmed. (“No one told me!”) • Veteran board members have turned micro-managing into an art form. • CEOs often use the mushroom management approach (Google it!). • Senior staffers plead for more face time with the board, then often convert board meetings into staff meetings. Stop the madness! Here’s one solution to these and many other obstacles to God-honoring governance: Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom, the new book by Dan Busby and yours truly. (Note: The link is for the second edition published in 2018.)   When ECFA President Dan Busby invited me to join him on this book project, I jumped at the opportunity. We’re both passionate about good governance so we wrote 40 very short chapters in 11 irresistible categories: Part 1: The Powerful Impact of Highly Engaged Boards • Would you trust a surgeon who stopped learning? How about a board member who stopped learning? (Lesson 1) • What’s the “Gold Standard Question” to ask after every board meeting? (Lesson 2) Part 2: Boardroom Tools, Templates, and Typos • “A BPM (board policies manual) will help your board negotiate an emergency leadership transition, frame the strategic planning process, and give direction and boundaries in dozens of other important policy issues.” (Lesson 4) • True or False: As a board member, “I receive way too many emails from our CEO, and I can’t discern what’s really important and what’s just an FYI.” (Lesson 6 on a nifty template, the “CEO’s Monthly 5/15 Report to the Board.”) Part 3: Nominees for the Board Member Hall of Fame • Andrew Murray: “Humility is the only soil in which the graces take root; the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure.” (Lesson 9) • General Norman Schwarzkopf: “Leaders need two things—character and strategy. If you can do only one, drop strategy.” (Lesson 9) Part 4: Epiphanies in the Boardroom • To inspire your board to go deeper into spiritual discernment, “…consider how St. Ignatius identified three distinct times when faced with making Spirit-filled choices.” (See Lesson 11 to learn more about a revelatory time, a discerning time, and a waiting time.) Part 5: Boardroom Bloopers • “Harebrained motions rarely pass. However, they may get unmerited oxygen resulting in a compromise with the strong support of an ‘out to lunch’ board member. (Read Lesson 17 for more on sidetracking harebrained motions!) Part 6: Boardroom Time-Wasters, Trouble-Makers, and Truth Tellers • “Without adequate advance preparation to fully address an issue, boards tend to function as a committee of the whole, often resorting to painfully circuitous discussion.” (See Lesson 19, “Never Throw Red Meat on the Board Table.”) Part 7: Boardroom Best Practices • On mission impact and sustainability, quoting Elmer Towns and Warren Bird, “Dakota tribal wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.” (Read Lesson 23 for more on the “dual bottom line” which equips boards to address dead horses and sacred cows.) Part 8: Boardroom Worst Practices • On spotting, catching, or exiting a falling CEO: “It was obvious to many others that our CEO was utterly failing, but our board was blind to what was happening right before our very eyes.” (Lesson 26) Part 9: Holy Ground and Other Locations • “Ruth Haley Barton puts a sharp stick into the heart of board decision-making that masquerades as discernment: ‘One very common leadership mistake is to think that we can take a group of undiscerning individuals and expect them to show up in a leadership setting and all of a sudden become discerning!’” (Lesson 28: Slow Down and Wait on God) Part 10: Building a 24/7 Board Culture • On four types of board members: “When you have board members in Group 4 (not performing and not living the values), invite them to exit the board. Then as you recruit new board members, remember this: if you want a healthy board, recruit healthy people.” (Lesson 31: Cut the Cord!) Part 11: Boards That Lead and Boards That Read • “As we’ve observed in hundreds and hundreds of ministries over the years, the numbers reveal the reality. Successfully achieving stretch goals is very uncommon, and thus reaching for the moon (and beyond!) should generally be avoided.” (Lesson 37: Don’t Stretch Credulity with BHAGs and Stretch Goals) 40 BLOGS. 40 WEDNESDAYS. Dan Busby and I have recruited 40 guest bloggers to add their color commentary to the 40 lessons. Click here for the Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom Blog. SAMPLE CHAPTER. To read full chapters, visit the ECFA Knowledge Center. And by the way, Dan wrote 20 lessons and I wrote 20 lessons. I’ll send a Starbucks gift card to the first reader who correctly guesses which 20 lessons I wrote. (Hint: Dan’s are better!)  AMAZON. To order from Amazon, click on the title for Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom (2nd Edition), by Dan Busby and John Pearson. Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) Lesson 27 urges staff and board members to “report once and report with clarity,” noting that hearing the same report more than once is a “10” on the pain threshold. Do your committees and staff tend to regurgitate the same report endlessly (and needlessly)? Does your full board trust—or not trust—your committees? 2) Lesson 30 shares the inspiring story, “The Truck Driver Was No Match for the Faith-Filled Board Chair.” How effectively do your board members share your organization’s tribal stories?    Date Board Prospects Before You Propose Marriage! Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook Imagine…if every person in your boardroom would prioritize their charitable giving so that your organization was in the Top-3 for each board member! That’s possible if you bring board prospects inside the concentric circles of involvement from event participant to donor and then into the generous donor circle. But! You must date board prospects before you propose marriage. Read more in Chapter 14, “The Board Bucket," in the new workbook. That’s just one of the 99 take-aways from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook: Management Tools, Templates, and Tips From John Pearson (2nd Edition), a Pearpod Resource). Created by John Pearson, it also includes color commentaries from Jason Pearson. For more on the Board Bucket, visit this webpage. And if you have not read the Buckets book, click on the graphic below to order from Amazon.         MORE STUFF! • 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 • PODCAST: John Pearson's Buckets Podcast  ECFA BLOG on “Governance of Christ-centered Organizations” – Add your thoughts and comments to John Pearson’s color commentary on "Agenda Clutter." John quotes Ralph Enlow, “…I find that the fatal combination of passivity and agenda clutter conspires to crowd out efforts to walk the talk of continuous board development.”

More Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom

 

Issue No. 421 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting  (Dec. 9, 2019) suggests a Christmas gift for your board members, CEO, and senior team members—and just in time—since Dan Busby and John Pearson, apparently, can’t stop writing books!  And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies). Two Things You Should Never Joke About! Looking for a Christmas gift for your organization’s board members, CEO, or senior team members? We’re a tad biased, but co-author Dan Busby and I recommend our latest book, More Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom: Effectiveness, Excellence, Elephants! More Lessons features 40 short insights for enriching effectiveness and excellence in the boardroom—and practical wisdom for addressing those elephants in the boardroom that no one wants to talk about! While all 40 lessons, we believe, are worthy of your time and reflection, we do have some favorite chapters. My top-two picks would be the wisdom we passed along from Olan Hendrix: • Lesson 32: There Are Two Things You Should Never Joke About—#1: Prayer • Lesson 33: There Are Two Things You Should Never Joke About—#2: Fundraising On fundraising, Olan Hendrix recounts a time he accompanied a client on a donor call. “This Christian leader had a worthwhile cause and many friends, but wasn’t raising any money. I wanted to find out why. “After exchanging pleasantries with the donor, he began making jokes about the fact that he was there to ask for money. I had discovered his problem! Perhaps he was covering up his nervousness about asking for money, but flippancy is never a good substitute for sincerity.” Hendrix, who served as the first president of ECFA, concluded, “I want a part of my legacy to be that I helped God’s servants to see fundraising not as something to joke about or apologize for, but as a noble and vital part of ministry.” No Joke! You’ve likely been at a meal when someone announces, “the last one with your thumb up says grace.” Hendrix shares another lesson learned when a search committee rejected a candidate who “made light of prayer.” When I first heard Olan share this with a group of young leaders—it immediately changed my thinking and my behavior. Yikes. You’ll find that More Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom will challenge and change board member thinking about dozens of boardroom behaviors and elephants: • Lesson 1: Two Stories—The Board and the Bachelor Farmer and $1.5 Billion Worth of Burger Blessings • Lesson 4: Guarding Your CEO’s Soul • Lesson 5: Dashboards Are Not a Secret Sauce for Sound Governance • Lesson 8: What If Your CEO Is Hit by a Bus? You’ll appreciate the short lessons in 10 major categories, including: Nominees for the Board Member Hall of Fame, Boardroom Bloopers, Boardroom Time-Wasters, Trouble-Makers and Truth-Tellers, and Boardroom Worst Practices. Examples: • Lesson 9: Just Do One Thing a Month • Lesson 13: Caution! Understand the Governance Pendulum Principle • Lesson 16: Looking for Consensus But Finding Division • Lesson 17: Botched Executive Sessions Are Not Pretty • Lesson 18: Warning! Résumé-Builders Make Lousy Board Members In our first book in this series, Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom: 40 Insights for Better Board Meetings, we encouraged boards to allocate a “10 Minutes for Governance” slot at every board meeting—to fan the flame of lifelong learning. Many boards are now doing that—and these short lessons are perfect for 10-minute segments (five minutes of content and five minutes of discussion): • Lesson 24: Should Most Standing Committees Stand Down? • Lesson 27: Address Absentee Board Member Syndrome • Lesson 35: Leverage the 80/20 Rule in the Boardroom • Lesson 39: Identify Your Key Assumptions In Lesson 39, we quote Donald Rumsfeld, “Meetings are a good place to discover whether an organization might be suffering from groupthink. If everyone in the room seems convinced of the brilliance of an idea, it may be a sign that the organization would benefit from more dissent and debate.” The Boardroom Lesson: “Identify your key assumptions so your inaccurate premises don’t lead to inaccurate conclusions and colossal flops! Invest time in assessing the validity of your assumptions—and asking for advice and counsel from others. Expect God to lead you to colleagues, acquaintances, and even experts who will give you feedback on your ministry’s important plans and your assumptions about those plans.” We encourage you to order copies for your board members, CEO, and senior team members and consider how to leverage one lesson at every board meeting and/or 10 or more lessons at your next board retreat. Watch for the “40 Blogs. 40 Wednesdays.” posts by 40 guest bloggers beginning on January 8, 2020. Visit the “More Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom Blog” here to subscribe. To order from Amazon, click on the title for More Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom: Effectiveness, Excellence, Elephants! by Dan Busby and John Pearson.    Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) “Defending Risks Everywhere Is Not a Strategic Plan,” Lesson 28 in More Lessons, warns that you must discuss the “risk elephant in the boardroom.” How effectively do our board, CEO, and senior team encourage “elephant discussions?” Is dissent and debate a value—or is conformity a boardroom value? 2) Lesson 26 cautions that “Ministry boards have a natural gravitational pull towards issues that should be reserved for the staff.” Does our board understand the “Big Rocks, Pebbles, and Sand” metaphor for keeping discussion at high levels? Should we invest 10 minutes for governance on Lesson 26 at our next board meeting?  Invest “10 Minutes for Governance” at Every Board Meeting Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook  One of the big ideas in the Board Bucket, Chapter 14, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to continue “dating” board members after you’ve recruited them to the board. Inspire board members to be lifelong learners. After all, we do appreciate airline pilots and surgeons who are also lifelong learners! “Tool #19: Ten Minutes for Governance” in the new resource, ECFA Tools and Templates for Effective Board Governance: Time-Saving Solutions for Your Board (also by Busby and Pearson), provides a template and ideas for reminding board members that “good governance does not happen by osmosis. It happens only with intentionality, training, and keeping critical governance topics (like focusing on policy, not operations) on everyone’s radar.” The book provides access to 22 Word documents you can customize for your board’s unique needs. (Follow the blog on the 22 tools here.) For more resources in the Board Bucket, and links to the four governance books by Dan Busby and John Pearson, click here.                    JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Are you leveraging the extraordinary power of visual media to inspire your members, clients, or customers? Check out the innovative work from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). And watch for John’s review of the new book by Doug Fields and Jason Pearson, This. Customizable Journal: 52 Ways to Share Your World With Those You Love.   40 SHORT LESSONS Click here to order the first book in the Lessons series, Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom: 40 Insights for Better Board Meetings (2nd Edition),  by Dan Busby and John Pearson. NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon. ECFA Tools and Templates Blog Click here to read John's new blog series on 22 downloadable tools and templates for effective board governance, including this post on a simple two-page checklist, "Tool #7: The Board's Annual Legal Audit." 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

ECFA Tools and Templates for Effective Board Governance

 

Issue No. 415 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Oct. 9, 2019) highlights a hot-off-the-press resource with 22 board governance tools and templates. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for recent book reviews, including StrategyMan vs. the Anti-Strategy Squad. Tool Competence! Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, once compared businesses to nonprofits with this memorable poke-in-the-ribs to both: “Although I don’t know a single for-profit business that is well managed as a few of the nonprofits, the great majority of the nonprofits can be graded a ‘C’ at best. Not for lack of effort; most of them work very hard. But for lack of focus, and for lack of tool competence.” So with that inspiration, Dan Busby, president of ECFA, and I have co-authored a hot-off-the press resource, ECFA Tools and Templates for Effective Board Governance: Time-Saving Solutions for Your Board. Jam-packed with 22 tools, the 272-page book includes access to downloadable Word documents that can be customized for any board. The tools are organized around six themes:    • Selecting and Training Excellent Board Members    • Board Assessments    • Reporting to the Board    • Taking Time for Strategic Planning    • Policies and Board Responsibilities    • Ideas for Better Board Governance Peter Drucker also wrote, “At least once every five years, every form should be put on trial for its life.” So…if it’s been five years (or 10 or 20 years) since you’ve updated your boardroom tools, this book will be a lifesaver for you. Examples: • Tool #1: The Pathway to the Board.  Ask an administratively-gifted person on your Governance Committee to track names and next steps in this customizable form for prospects in your pipeline. (It will slow you down—a good thing—so you take time to “date” board prospects before you propose “marriage.”) Six important steps. • Tool #2: Board Nominee Suggestion Form. Inspire your board and senior team to recommend board prospects with a suggestion form that factors in your board-approved criteria. A huge time-saver! • Tool #5: The Board’s Annual Self-Assessment Survey. According to John Carver, “Board self-evaluation is an inseparable part of governing, not an extraneous or optional task.” Three options for measuring your board’s effectiveness. • Tool #8: The Board’s Annual Fundraising Audit. Here’s a true or false quiz with 10 statements the board must address annually about your fundraising program. What should the board be asking the CEO and staff? Features a green/yellow/red dashboard with Celebrate/Watch/Act indicators. Tools and More! Sprinkled throughout the book are the research results from ECFA’s 2019 Nonprofit Governance Survey and comprehensive report, Unleashing Your Board’s Potential. ECFA research revealed that 82% of board members indicated that their fundraising needed the greatest improvement. Strategic planning was ranked second with 64% saying that was their nonprofit’s greatest need. • Tool #11: Monthly Dashboard Report. A one-page color-coded dashboard report from the CEO to the board can be customized to highlight three to five of your CEO’s Annual S.M.A.R.T. Goals—with this caveat from Peter Drucker, “If you have more than five goals, you have none.” This will revolutionize your CEO’s priorities—and get everyone on the same page. • Tool #15: Board Retreat Trend-Spotting Exercise. Just add water and stir—and this simple template will engage every board member in looking down the road for those important twists and turns that will impact your organization. Easy to implement! • Tool #22: Straw Vote Cards. Hundreds of boards use green and red straw vote cards in every board meeting—as a quick and courteous way to give every board member a voice. The green card means yes. The red card means no. Another huge time-saver and consensus-builder. A Lot More! I’m a tad biased, of course, but even if you use just one tool or template—you’ll bless your board members and save time and money. The book gives you access to all 22 tools and templates—so you can customize them for your board’s unique needs. Other tools include: a legal audit checklist, a financial management audit checklist, options for the board’s annual evaluation of the top leader, a quarterly board meeting agenda template, board retreat read-and-reflect worksheets, The Rolling 3-Year Strategic Plan Placemat (one page), a board policies manual template, job descriptions, tent cards and tools for leveraging board member strengths, a “Ten Minutes for Governance” practice, and the Board Member Annual Affirmation Statement. Did I mention—272 pages of jam-packed time-saving tools? Enjoy! To order from Amazon, click on the title for ECFA Tools and Templates for Effective Board Governance: Time-Saving Solutions for Your Board, by Dan Busby and John Pearson. (Note: read my tribute to Dan here.) Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) R. Buckminster Fuller said, “If you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don’t bother to teach them. Instead, give them a tool, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking.” What tool inspired you to think a new way? 2) “At least once every five years, every form should be put on trial for its life,” wrote Peter Drucker. Are there other unexamined or outdated programs, systems, or tools that need a refresh in our organization?   Agree or Disagree? Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook  One of the big ideas in the Board Bucket, Chapter 14, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to “ensure that all board members hone their board competencies regularly.” That includes understanding the foundational role of the board. Agree or Disagree: Green Card or Red Card?  “There are no dysfunctional organizations, only dysfunctional boards.” If you agree with that statement, invest in your board and order ECFA Tools and Templates for Effective Board Governance. Then note the hidden webpage in the book and download the customizable Word documents that will enrich your board’s effectiveness and your organization’s impact.  For more governance resources, visit the Board Bucket here.                    JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Are you leveraging the extraordinary power of visual media to inspire your members, clients, or customers? Check out the innovative work from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). If it’s been five or more years since you’ve put your visual images “on trial”—contact Pearpod Media today!   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 22 Tools and Templates! Click here to read John's short blogs: "Index to 22 Time-Saving Governance Tools and Templates." NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon.

Lessons From the Church Boardroom

 

Issue No. 402 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Feb. 20, 2019) is a tad self-promotional, but only 50 percent (learn why). Read the new book, Lessons From the Church Boardroom, by Dan Busby and yours truly.  And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my 2018 Book-of-the-Year and my Top-10 books of 2018.   Church Boardroom Bloopers! News Flash! There’s way too much confusion in the trenches on the appropriate roles and responsibilities of church board members.    • New church board members are often overwhelmed. (“No one told me!”)    • Veteran board members have turned micro-managing into an art form.    • Senior pastors often use the mushroom management approach (Google it!).    • Senior staffers plead for more face time with the church board, then with missionary zeal, often convert board meetings into staff meetings. STOP THE MADNESS! Here’s one solution to these and many other obstacles to God-honoring governance: Lessons From the Church Boardroom: 40 Insights for Exceptional Governance, by Dan Busby and John Pearson. When ECFA President Dan Busby (1941-2022) invited me to co-author a series of governance books with him, I jumped at the opportunity. We’re both passionate about good governance so we wrote 40 very short chapters in 10 irresistible categories: Part 1: The Powerful Impact of Highly Engaged Boards • Would you trust a surgeon who stopped learning? How about a church board member who stopped learning? (Lesson 1) • What’s the “Gold Standard Question” to ask after every board meeting? (Lesson 2) • Andrew Murray: “Humility is the only soil in which the graces take root; the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure.” (Lesson 3: Guarding Your Pastor’s Soul—a must-read chapter) Part 2: Boardroom Tools and Templates • “A BPM (board policies manual) will help your church board negotiate an emergency leadership transition, frame the strategic planning process, and give direction and boundaries in dozens of other important policy issues.” (Lesson 5) • True or False: Our church board is crystal clear on the role of the board versus the role of the staff. (Use Lesson 7’s one-page Prime Responsibility Chart to eliminate fuzziness between board and staff roles.) Part 3: Nominees for the Church Board Member Hall of Fame • Yikes! “Pastor Carlos said he didn’t have the spiritual gift of church board meetings!” (Lesson 8: Thrive With Four Kingdom Values) • Attn: All Pastors! “Don’t ask board members to vote against God!” (Lesson 9) Part 4: Epiphanies in the Boardroom • To inspire your board to go deeper into spiritual discernment, “…consider how St. Ignatius identified three distinct times when faced with making Spirit-filled choices.” (See Lesson 11 to learn more about a revelatory time, a discerning time, and a waiting time.) • “It is only with the help of the Lord—and often the Lord uses fresh faces on the board—that a church will begin the important process of governance improvement. God can move mountains, so you can also trust Him to move pendulums!” (Lesson 13: Caution! Understand the Governance Pendulum Principle) Part 5: Boardroom Bloopers • On listening: “Leave space for anyone who may want to speak a first time before speaking a second time.” (Just one of 10 pokes-in-the-ribs on effective boardroom listening from Ruth Haley Barton in Lesson 15.) Part 6: Boardroom Time-Wasters, Trouble-Makers, and Truth Tellers • “Without adequate advance preparation to fully address an issue, boards tend to function as a committee of the whole, often resorting to painfully circuitous discussion.” (See Lesson 18, “Never Throw Red Meat on the Board Table.”) Part 7: Boardroom Best Practices • How do you address Absentee Board Member Syndrome?        --Option 1: Ho Hum.        --Option 2: Hint.       --Option 3: Harass. (Read Lesson 25 for seven insights, including “Affirm. Affirm. Affirm. When board colleagues affirm each other, then engagement will heighten and board service satisfaction will soar.”) Part 8: Boardroom Worst Practices • Read “Where Two or Three Are Gathered on Social Media…” to learn why conflicts of interest always sound more questionable on the internet and social media. (Lesson 28) Part 9: Building a 24/7 Board Culture • Honest! Lesson 36 begins with Billy Crystal’s stunning performance, “15 Rounds”—honoring boxing great Muhammad Ali—in front of 20,000 of Ali’s “closest friends” in 1979. Watch it here on YouTube. Learn why the “goal of every board should be continuous improvement to make the board better than it was before.” Part 10: Boards That Lead • “As we’ve observed in hundreds of churches over the years, the numbers reveal the reality. Successfully achieving stretch goals is very uncommon, and thus reaching for the moon (and beyond!) should generally be avoided.” (Lesson 39: Don’t Stretch Credulity with BHAGs and Stretch Goals) RESOURCES: [  ] 40 BLOGS. 40 WEDNESDAYS. Dan Busby and the ECFA team are featuring 40 guest bloggers with their color commentaries to all 40 lessons. Click here for Lessons From the Church Boardroom—The Blog. (Subscribe on the blog to receive a new lesson every Wednesday.) [  ] READ the first chapter online, “Lesson 1 – Wanted: Lifelong Learners,” visit the ECFA Knowledge Center here. [  ] GUESS! And by the way, Dan wrote about half the lessons and I wrote the other half. I’ll send a Starbucks gift card (or a Chick-fil-A gift card) to the first reader who correctly guesses which lessons I wrote. (Hint: Dan’s are better!) Email me. [  ] VISIT the book’s website here for more resources.   [  ] ORDER from Amazon, click on the title for Lessons From the Church Boardroom: 40 Insights for Exceptional Governance, by Dan Busby and John Pearson. [  ] BULK ORDERS: For special pricing on multiple copies for your church board and senior team, visit ECFAPress here. Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) Lesson 29 asks, “Are too many staff causing the boardroom to capsize?” Is there a “right number” of board members versus staff in your board meetings? Read “Keeping the Boardroom Afloat.” 2) Lesson 30 gives seven ways to avoid a financial train wreck in your church. A graphic, “The Transparency Continuum,” urges boards to discern what “appropriate transparency” looks like—a delicate balance between two extremes: no transparency and absolute transparency (neither appropriate). Where is your board on the continuum? Eliminate Fuzziness Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook  True or False? Our church board is crystal clear on the role of the board versus the role of the staff.  If not clear, visit the Operations Buckets webpage and download the Prime Responsibility Chart template—and then customize it to eliminate fuzziness between board and staff roles. (It’s also a helpful one-pager for any project where the approval process is a tad fuzzy.) For more resources from the workbook, visit “The Operations Bucket” webpage here. JASON AND JOHN PEARSON quote Zig Ziglar in the intro to the Operations Bucket chapter of Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook: “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing—that’s why we recommend it daily.” So if it’s been a very long time since you’ve coached and mentored your team in the Operations Bucket, here’s a reminder that last year’s coaching wasn’t enough. Click on the graphic below to order the workbook from Amazon.                JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Delegate your reading—and ask a team member to read Duct Tape Marketing, the classic from John Jantsch. Jump to page 32 and craft your “Talking Logo.” Then align that with the innovative ideas from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).  JUST PUBLISHED! Lessons From the Church Boardroom: 40 Insights for Exceptional Governance, by Dan Busby and John Pearson, is now available on Amazon. Read the short posts by 40 guest bloggers here.  NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon. ASK BOARD NOMINEES THIS... Visit the ECFA Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations blog to learn why board members must "voluntarily inconvenience themselves." (Yikes!) And read more insights from The Council, by Hoag, Willmer, and Henson. Click here. 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