Guest Blog Writer: Georgy Ann Peluchiwski is a GLP critical friend and collaborator, working with us as Faculty in our Women’s Leadership Summit program and on several governance related projects. She is currently the Board Chair at the Latin School of Chicago.
Any crisis, including the current pandemic, lays bare the essential elements of our schools and their leadership. Our strengths shine through. Gaps in governance or leadership that existed pre-crisis do not go away, but are magnified. Our clarity of our purpose and our values is revealed - for better or for worse. And individuals reveal what is most core in their capacities - both their positive attributes and their vulnerabilities. This “laying bare” can be good or bad, depending on your pre-crisis state, but in either case there are things school leadership can do to respond and lead effectively. For those heads and boards who have weathered a crisis together in the past, they likely have “muscle memory” to draw upon in working through the present situation. For others, who are either new to working together, or don’t have prior crisis experience, they will have to create structures, formal or informal, to organize for a successful response.
In the context of a pandemic, the shift to “remote governance” empowers us to laser focus on the things that matter most. I think about it as the corollary to the pivot to “remote learning,” in which we are forced to ask: what is most essential that we MUST deliver on? How do we keep our community engaged and connected? What tools can we use to communicate effectively in a remote setting?
Finally, the “essentials” of governance and leadership are no different now than before a crisis. The three domains of fiduciary, strategic, and adaptive still matter in the work going forward (see Stephanie Rogen’s white paper on “Adaptive Boards” for a more detailed description of the three domains). Additionally, GLP has consistently prioritized in its work with clients a focus on the interrelated elements of strategy, organizational development and capacity building as the keys to progress. A focus on these three elements has even greater implications for how we lead our schools into the future in the context of this pandemic.
Looking through these lenses can help to effectively focus our efforts as boards working in partnership with our heads and schools.
What Boards and Heads Can Do Now
For Boards:
Focus relentlessly on the essentials of governance:
Ensure adequate resources are secured to address crisis plans and communications, immediate financial needs, and access to information
Ensure support of school leadership (see “Ask the Head” below)
Mobilize around other fiduciary work —budgeting, scenario planning, election of board, other policy issues, PPP? What can or are we willing to do with our endowment?
Identify the relevant and high priority strategic and generative work-- boards and school leadership still need to be planning for the future.
Support (and offer training if needed) effective remote work by agreeing on tools, norms, schedules and new methods of collaboration that everyone can use with ease
Ask the Head: What Do You Need?
What can you take off the Head’s plate? Assume your head has the operational in hand, but listen for where they are feeling unsure and assess where the board can assist, either directly or indirectly. Often, financial considerations, endowment use, and modelling in a crisis are places where Boards can do a lot of technical and adaptive work. Your head may need your help to assess impact on enrollment, tuition, financial aid, philanthropy for budgets, and/or endowment considerations. Your Head may also need a more “just in time” advisory group or task force that leverages trustee talents. Don’t convene a special group without a defined need, but do inventory what you can offer and make sure you are aligning that to the Head’s needs.
For Heads:
Keep your Board informed and involved
Share what decisions have been made and updates on the execution and ask for their support and feedback. Then, help your board look beyond the horizon. You may have to be specific with your existential questions: some boards are “stuck” right now and may gravitate toward discussing micro things that feel “safe” rather than tackling the great unknown. Heads with good board relationships should be honest about how it’s going, what they are concerned about, and where they need help. If convening whole board for this doesn’t feel right, consider the executive committee, or officers. For heads without good board relations, consider convening a group that you select as a special advisory group, or finding individual trustees who have the expertise you need.
Together:
If you agree on where you are headed, it’s easier to work out the details together. Ideally, Heads should share, and trustees should be interested in the following information -- when in dialogue about these topics you should find common ground:
How we are delivering on our mission in the current environment (distance learning, ensuring community, wellness etc)? Where might we be drifting?
What context matters? Talk about the competitive realities, and how others in your market are responding. What are our relative strengths? Weaknesses? Help educate trustees so they can address the big questions and be good ambassadors.
Ask the important strategic questions: What threats does this pose to the future? Financial, reputational, mission relevance? Any opportunities? Innovation? Redefining value proposition?
Assess your capacity: who and what can you leverage to make progress? What’s limiting you and how do you remove obstacles and fill in the gaps?
And a Few More Tips…
Remote operations require a successful return to governance basics: support your HOS; focus on mission and values; be intentional about fiduciary, strategic and generative questions; and prioritize work in order of now, next, and later.
Find the team and people you need. It’s okay if those you need are not technically in the right seats. Who are the best thinkers, in school and on the board, and how do you organize them for what comes next?
Find the information you need. If you don’t have it, ask for it. Go beyond school to get expertise or resources that make the difference.
Over communicate around expectations and needs. If you don’t know what your head needs or your board needs, ask and be specific. Be honest about where you are. It’s okay to not have all the answers, but be intentional about defining a process to get there.
Build in agility and flexibility. Use teams to work on problems -- avoid large committee meetings or conversations without clear cut agendas.
You may have to slow down to speed up. Ask the right questions. Be thoughtful about potential implications to your actions at the outset so you can move fast and adapt easily as you implement.