Wednesday, September 26, 2012

READY FOR TAKEOFF



Last night I met with a terrific board at one of our ADVIS schools. An important item on their list this year is setting up a process for coordinating goals and evaluation.

If your school doesn't already have a system in place, this is a great time to make it happen. Goals for the year should be prepared by:
  • Each board committee 
  • The board as a whole
  • Each trustee 
  • The head of school 
If you have a current strategic plan, this year's portion of the work will be captured in your goals, of course. If you don't have a plan right now, setting coordinated goals may be the best thing you can do
to enhance productivity while you get a plan in place.

For the board as a whole or for individual trustees, it's a good idea to reference Principles of Good Practice from the Friends Council or NAIS. Both books have good sections on optimum practice and will be very useful in setting individual or board priorities.

Timing? Goals and action steps should be prepared by the first board meeting in the fall. Even better, have them done by the end of the school year for the year ahead.

Coordination? Head and board need to take time for shared input, discussion, and prioritizing. Then head, board, and committee goals can be distributed to all. (Individual trustees will probably get the best mileage out of considering their personal goals in private.)

As with all other internal work, goals must be kept in strict confidence.

What about evaluation?

Evaluation holds everyone accountable, of course. But it actually serves a much larger purpose, in offering opportunities for organic board education. At evaluation time you find out if your work gained you the strategic advantages you anticipated. You uncover surprises that lead to generative discussions. You see which goals were too big for one year, as well as which ones netted you larger gains than you thought possible. You identify areas that need development and you uncover existing resources. You fine tune your planning skills for the next year, too.

With written goals in hand, evaluation is quick and easy to do. This morning I had an email exchange with another board, this one from the Friends Council network. They're using a goal format for committees that's simple to fill out and use. With evaluation data added at the end of the year, it's a clear method for accurate reporting. And it provides a great jump start on the following year. Here's a sample of a simple format:

FACILITIES COMMITTEE 2012-13                                                                                                   SAMPLE


GOALS &
Action Steps
Resources Needed
Deadline
Completion Data
Evaluation Notes
COMPLETE A CAMPUS MASTER PLAN




Interview and get prices from 3 architects




Propose a project plan to the board




Submit a complete master plan to the board




ETC.





The same school has been doing creative board evaluations for quite some time. This year they repeated an evaluation they did in 2009, a simple online survey based on FCE's Principles of Good Practice. Hot off the presses, they've got a gold mine of comparative data, showing areas they've improved in as a board (we were glad to note that these represented achievements in top priority areas from the past 3 years) and some places where they'll want to pay attention in the future.

The plane's on the runway -- is your board fueled and ready to go?

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