Focusing On Results

BTMAD 04


The reason for the existence of Reach Unlimited is to satisfy the needs of our clients. Whose needs, which needs, and what constitutes “satisfaction” are the unending and subjective questions that confront our board. Therefore, the most important work of the governing board is to create, and re-create, the reasons for organizational existence.

It is important that the board view results in terms of cost and benefit. We engage in a transaction with the world outside Reach. We consume talent, capital, and space in exchange for making clients safer, happier, and healthier. The board should ask itself, “What good shall we accomplish, for which people and needs, and at what cost?”

Ends are the satisfactory results. Means are activities and procedures staff choose to achieve the intended effects. Often we get so engrossed by discrete routines that we lose sight of the intended results. We can become distracted by commendable activities, conditions, structure, and technologies.
Activities are always means, no matter how important or complex. External outcomes, results, and impacts are Ends.

A Mission statement is a broad and brief Ends statement that answers these questions: “What is this organization for?” and “How will the world be different as a result of our existence?” Following are six critical characteristics of a powerful Mission Statement:
1 – Detail the change, the effects, we wish to make - but not in terms of activities. Rather, the change is the mission.
2 – Succinct.
3 – It should be generated by the board, not just approval of a staff generated statement.
4 – The statement should be integrated with related external organizations i.e. the community.
5 – The Mission should be a displayed prominently and repeated often.
6 – It should be the theme of all departments and decisions.

The first step is to determine the Mission. Second is to establish the products, consumers, and costs which the board feels strongly enough about to make pronouncements. And third, to subject those issues to analysis, debate, and vote.

Policy making stops at the point where the board is willing for the Executive Director to make further decisions about activities (Means). The idea is to not extend policy making to the small value choices. The staff should not have to worry that the board will so extensively address low level issues that there is very little latitude for the staff to do its job. The staff is driving, and as long as we feel they are not taking the long route, they should be permitted to choose the lane and the route.

Good governance calls for the board‘s role in long range planning to consist chiefly of defining a “somewhere” the organization needs to go. The enunciation of this “somewhere” is the board’s highest contribution. The actual long range planning should be done by staff – not the board. The board should confine itself to the big questions about Ends and not drift into current issues.

Once Ends policies are written, the board should focus on answering the question: “How are we doing?” There should be a precise, systematic, non-intrusive, criteria-focused method for monitoring results. Keep asking, “What did we want to accomplish and did we accomplish it?”