Recruitment Rhapsody: Harmonizing Boards for Success (Excerpt)

In music, harmony is the concept of combining a variety of sounds together from multiple instruments to create a new, distinct musical idea. Consider an orchestra where the cello is in sync with the piano which is dancing note by note with the viola. The tuba and vibraphone have found their rhythm, and each musician follows the conductor’s cues. Sitting in the audience, you feel and experience the musical sensations, the unique contribution of each string, horn, and bass. All seems right in the world as the melodies tickle your ears because the harmony is unmatched.

For me, an orchestra is a metaphor for nonprofit boards. Each board member brings unique perspective, skills, talents, and lived experiences as the collective board “steers the ship” towards the organization’s mission. There may be a “conductor” in the role of board chair or co-chairs, helping to direct and harness the board’s collective energies. The harmony a board makes together manifests through candid and deep dialogue, an intentional focus on the board’s shared responsibilities, and a commitment to keeping organizational priorities in focus. Harmony happens when boards know how to shape the mission and strategic direction, ensure leadership and resources, and monitor and improve organizational performance.

A board that knows how to harmonize has developed this as a leadership practice. In “The Leadership Ethos: How What We Believe Can Inform Our Leadership Practices,” Jeanne Bell writes, “Although often portrayed as such in management literature and popular culture, leadership is not a generic set of behaviors that can be codified and transferred across generations, industries, values sets, or presidents. Instead, leadership is an expression of a group’s particular ethos, where ethos is defined as “the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period.”[1] Developing the conditions for harmony requires the board, as a collective, to clarify and confirm its leadership ethos and how the group will be in right relationship to further the organization’s impact in the world.

The rules of engagement for board members can shift and evolve with time. Harmony generally is something to strive for, yet developing a leadership practice around how to navigate and resolve conflict is another related leadership practice. Boards fascinate me because they are a motley crew of individuals who have chosen to join a team rooting for a particular organization.

Leigh Thompson is the J. Jay Gerber Distinguished Professor of Dispute Resolution and Organizations at Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University where her research focuses on negotiation, creativity, virtual communication, and teamwork. Thompson’s definition of team is “a group of people who are interdependent with respect to information, resources, knowledge and skills and who seek to combine their efforts to achieve a common goal.” As individuals, board members contain multitudes, but combine their energies to achieve a common goal. The variety of opinions, political ideologies, faiths, and other markers of difference that influence how they show up in the boardroom naturally lends itself to conflict. What happens when the harmony is interrupted, or an instrument is out of tune? How does the orchestra get back on track?

The board’s leadership practices are created and sustained in the small moments, in how information is shared, how colleagues hold each other accountable and repair harm, and celebrate each other’s contributions. Resolving conflict in the boardroom is a choice. This guide outlines how boards can strategically recruit people who are dispositioned to manage conflict effectively and provides real-life client examples and tools to support your board’s transformation.

[1] Bell, Jeanne. “The Leadership Ethos: How What We Believe Can Inform Our Leadership Practices - Non-Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly.” Non-Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly, 12 Feb. 2020, nonprofitquarterly.org/leadership-ethos-believe-can-inform-leadership-practices .