Episode Transcript
Elizabeth McIsaac: Most boards don't fail because people don't care, they fail because no one ever taught them how to govern well. Our guest today, Aleem Punja, Executive Director of the Future Ready Initiative, a national agency of the Aga Khan Council for Canada, has worked with boards across many sectors and knows what it takes to make them truly effective.
He's going to share with us how great boards focus on strategy and results, build trust with staff, and lead with what he calls head, heart, and homework. I'm certain you're going to find his ideas both practical and inspiring, and that's the goal of Five Good Ideas.
I would also be remiss if I didn't mention that Aleem is alumni of the Maytree Policy School.
We're delighted to have Aleem with us today; and, Aleem, when you are ready, over to you to get us started.
Aleem Punja: Elizabeth, thanks so much for the kind introduction, and it's a privilege to be here with you today. And I do want to thank the Maytree team for all they've done to get us ready for today. It's spaces like this where us as community can come together and build capacity of the non-profit sector. And it's truly a community that has belonging and that has dignity and that has an opportunity to reflect and learn from each other.
I do want to take a moment before we get into t he content to recognize the staff at the Aga Khan Council for Canada and the volunteers, many of who are sitting beside me in the room just adjacent to my office here, and for those who have dialled in from across the country.
I also recognize a number of names in this webinar room and those who I've worked with in the past and those who we continue to work with today; and so very grateful for those of you who have joined.
Some of you who are going to be watching this webinar may remember some of the journey that myself and some of us were on together. And I wanted to bring these case examples in kind of the fullest transparency and also to be quite vulnerable; so then we could bring up some live examples of what those experiences could look like.
I've anonymized those examples but I ask for everyone to be respectable of to be kind of show some respect in the conversation today and for this will be kind of an opportunity for us to have meaningful discourse with one another using those real examples as something that we can all certainly learn from.
On a personal note, as Elizabeth has mentioned, I am an alumni from the Maytree Policy School, and I promise I haven't been told to put in a plug but I feel compelled to do so. Maytree Policy School shaped my leadership in profound ways.
It helped me think about policy differently, it helped me think about engaging government differently and the process, the legislative framework in which we work in. It helped me think about systems differently and helped me think about people differently.
And Policy School was a real gift from Maytree, not only an investment in myself, but most importantly an investment in my organization. And the network that I gained, the colleagues, the thinkers, the collaborators, they all continue to guide me and my organization. So really grateful for that opportunity as it was meaningful.
And I would actually suggest anyone that's in this webinar room if you have an opportunity to get through Policy School with Maytree, please do, it's a wonderful, wonderful opportunity.
I want to begin with something very personal. And it's really about how I understand service. Many of you know I belong to the Ismaili community. And as part of our faith we have a word that we use that describes service; and that word is khidmah.
It's an Arabic word and it means service or selfless service. It's not only about volunteering, it's about a way, it's about a way of living. It's about compassion and responsibility and dignity and care, and it is unconditional. It's joyful, and it's central to our identity as Ismailis. Khidmah helped shape how I lead, how I govern, and how I show up for others; and it is why I've served on boards for years.
I've served on working boards, on policy boards, on governance committees, on executive committees, on equity committees. And I've seen boards at their best, and I've seen boards at their most challenged situations ever.
And through all of those experiences, the wonderful experiences, the messy experiences that one need to navigate, the complex ones, I've learned a lot during the course of my experience and my involvement with boards.
And as Elizabeth has mentioned, boards rarely lose their way because people lack the skill or commitment. Boards lose their way is when they lose connection to their heart and the reason for why they serve. And sometimes we hide behind KPIs and fiduciary language, bylaws and motions and business of governance and Robert's rules. And all those things of course matter; they're important. But governance without heart in my opinion becomes performative. When we forget the people behind the decisions, the communities we serve, the dignity we protect, governance loses its purpose.
And that's why I wanted to frame today's reflections or perhaps five good ideas, something that I call heart, head, and homework. And so the heart really stands for the purpose, service, and empathy that we lead with. The head is the clarity and the structure and the discipline that makes governance effective and of course outcome-based. And homework is the preparation, and the learning, and the reflection that boards of directors ought to demonstrate so governance can be strong.
So as we get into a bit of my journey and the five ideas or the five critical reflections that I certainly want to share, I thought we can start off with some audience engagement. I'm hoping that for those of you who are in front of a computer or your phones, if you can pull up the chat, and I'm really curious to know, so not the Q&A but the chat this time, I'm really curious to know in one or two words describe the relationship that you have with your board of directors. You might be a fellow board member, you might be a staff member, you might be a committee member who's inspired and interested in joining the board that you are serving on. You might be someone who's in and around a board or a community member that has benefited from a board.
So I would love for you to describe in one or two words and I'm seeing some things come in here. I'm seeing that Chris has written disconnected, friend, collegial, inquisitive, relaxed and confident, respectful, engaged, good friends with fellow board, but somewhat disconnected, unengaged, collaborative, supportive, transactional, collegial. Okay, all things that we can certainly discuss and tackle in today's session.
The second question that I have for people, and some of you who have been in and around well-functioning boards have kind of suggested that there's partnership and that there's thankfulness and that there's friendship and that there's engagement, but what's one or two words that describe a well-functioning board? How does that look and how does that feel? So if you want to put that in the chat: cohesiveness, yep, clarity and mission, strong leadership, confident and competent, good communication, a really important one, inspiring, understanding their roles, boundaries, absolutely, strategic, efficient, respectful, diverse, timely. Wow, these are really good ones here, awesome. Let those come in and as you are in that chat, I would love for you to reflect on some of those words that your colleagues have put into that chat as we actually get into some of the content. So why don't we go right into it.
My first good idea or perhaps my first reflection is that everything begins with purpose. And purpose is not decorative; it's a governance tool. And when boards forget their why, you know, their why, they drift, they become reactive, they become bureaucratic, they become disconnected from the people they serve.
And I saw this very clearly when I used to work in the broader public sector and I was assigned as the executive to the staff and actually served as a co-chair to the board's enterprise risk management committee. And we had incredibly sophisticated conversations on risk management. In fact, sometimes those conversations to me felt very kind of intergalactical, if that's even a word. We tracked everything, we tracked political risk and legislative risk and labour risk, equity and belonging, media risk. We talked about business continuity. That dashboard that was presented on a monthly basis at committee was beautiful. It was clean, it was technical and you had committee members who did their homework and came to discuss enterprise risk management. And frankly, some of those folks were experts in their field of risk.
But to me something felt off and for those of you who work and serve in the non-profit sector, you know what that means. And the conversation was relatively corporate, it was disconnected and it was absolutely disconnected from the children and youth and families who were the centre of the work that we were doing. They were the ones that we needed to centre in all of the decision-making.
So we had suggested, or perhaps I had suggested, that we add one very simple column to the dashboard. And that simple column was to gather information on one particular question, just one, and it was: How does this risk impact service to children, youth and families? The committee also ratified and made that a mandatory discussion point when considering recommendations from the committee to the board.
And that single question that we had integrated as part of the framework of what we assessed of all of those risks that I had mentioned, and we centred those who we were serving, the conversation became different. The risk mitigation became different, the way we talked about risk became different. That governance process from my perspective became more human. Purpose was re-entered into the room and we centred those we were serving.
And we were able to calibrate that the client that we were serving in that committee meeting was not necessarily just the board of directors, it was the organization, it was the community and it was those that we had touched every single day of what our frontline staff actually did. And so purpose in my opinion is not a slogan, it's a discipline and grounding every conversation in purpose, I can guarantee you, will transform governance.
Another reflection that I have or perhaps another good idea is that boards need to govern and not manage. And this is especially hard for small organizations or working boards, many of which I've been a part of and many of you have asked questions about this because there's quite a number of nonprofits that are represented in the Zoom room today that are small and that have boards that actually get into providing service, not only governing.
And so how involved should boards be in that in that level of operations? And if there are especially if there are no staff, and who actually runs the organization? I mean, these are all real questions that you had asked in the questions leading up to the session today. But the truth is, from my perspective, is that a board's value comes from direction, from strategy, from oversight and connection to purpose, not necessarily from doing the work of staff. It's really to work alongside staff.
I once was on a board and it was a true working board and the chair of that board had responsibilities almost equal to the executive director. And everyone cared deeply, everyone worked hard but the boundaries were blurry.
When we introduced strategic partnerships, for example, from a staff perspective, the working board believed it was their role to implement. And based on their volunteer portfolios, their mandate to what they felt was important to execute as part of their roles was really stepping a little bit on staff shoes.
But meanwhile, staff believed that their role was really to manage those relationships, execute on those relationships because they had daytime availability and they were able to engage in daytime conversations and those who were serving were those who were being served during business hours, etc.. Both groups were acting with care, but the lack of clarity created real tension. And I remember frontline staff saying very quietly to me, "Everyone is working so hard but not together." And that moment stayed with me.
We eventually created a roles matrix, a tool that aligned leadership and it really clarified responsibilities. So once we did that, tension eased. We were able to work on that trust and most importantly that the organization of who it served received better service. And so governing well is not about doing less, it's about doing the right things and it's about empowering others to do the rest.
Another truth or perhaps idea that comes to mind is really centring equity and pluralism in every governance decision. It's important to note that boards hold power and that power affects real people. It affects the staff, it affects the volunteers, it affects the communities in which the organization is situated within, it affects the people that the organization serves. And equity is not an add-on and pluralism is not decorative; they are essential governance practices, and so perhaps we need to align on what the definitions of equity and pluralism are.
When it comes from a governance context, I would say that governance is about examining who's benefiting, kind of who's burdened by the decision-making that's happening. Who's missing around the board table or the committee table to be able to shape those decisions? Whose voices need to be at that table to shape the decision-making? It really requires courage and humility and curiosity and a willingness to redesign systems so people can feel that they're participating fully and that there's a sense of belonging in the conversation.
Now pluralism is really an understanding that diversity is simply not a demographic fact. It's not about bringing a whole bunch of people together; it goes really beyond that. It's acknowledging that pluralism is a strength and it enriches decision-making, it strengthens institutions, it deepens community trust because when you reflect the community in which you serve that trust is actually developed, nurtured and maintained. And so together when you ensure that there's good governance, it's not just about inclusion, it's about centring equity and pluralism, being responsive to the community reality.
Now I'll give you an example of a challenging situation that I actually was certainly a part of and needing to certainly navigate with the board of directors that I supported as an executive. And I vividly remember this during COVID at a broader public sector organization that I used to work with.
We were under enormous financial pressure. In fact, when I joined the organization there was a historical debt that we were carrying and there was an accountability agreement that was signed between the organization and the ministry to be able to balance the budget so we were already in non-compliance.
And one of the proposed solutions that were really brought forward by board members but also by finance staff was to close and or amalgamate two southern offices which were located about 30 minutes apart from each other.
On paper the recommendation made perfect financial sense. It was clean, it was efficient, it was logical. Why do we need multiple offices? Why do we need to pay multiple rents to multiple landlords? All of those discussions actually led to very practical reasons for why these two offices didn't necessarily need to exist and that we wanted people to be more embedded into the community and also renovate the main office which was about 30 minutes north of the southern offices.
Now when we applied an equity lens, everything changed.
Those offices, when we peeled the layers of the onion, served the most diverse communities in the region. The communities in which those two offices were serving, the diversity population exceeded well over 70% of the community in those communities. And there were transportation barriers, the needs were high and frankly most of the new referrals that were coming in to the organization were coming in from those municipalities in which those two offices existed in. And so closing those offices would have reduced access, it would have weakened trust and frankly would have actually created inequities.
And so the concept of closing those offices from a non-equity perspective, from a financial perspective, an operational perspective, a governance perspective, was technically sound but it was socially harmful and it would have impacted those who we were serving quite magnificently.
And so when we were able to pull the layers of the onion back for the board and the board was able to see the full context when we centred equity and pluralism in the conversation, we were able to demonstrate what those implications were and we made a different decision. And so governance is not only about balancing budgets. Governance is about balancing and protecting the dignity and access of those who you're actually providing service to while balancing the budget because we do know that non-profits today are in crisis and are doing less with more. But you have to ensure that you create an environment that has the full context to ensure that decisions are made and decisions are sound.
Another piece of reflection, or a good idea, for me is really the context of trust. And I share this with sincerity because I've been a part of what happens when trust weakens. And I remember during the pandemic when I was a part of an organization navigating a very serious internal crisis. We experienced that.
Externally the sector, our nonprofit sector, was significantly strained. All of you will remember this and in fact some of this continues even today. And many of us were being held accountable by various stakeholder groups and community members and community organizations.
But internally something even more dangerous was happening: it was mistrust between the board and the executive team. And frankly, it wasn't because people didn't care; it was because historical fractures were never repaired. And at some point people stopped seeing themselves as a single team. There were sides to the table and people sat with conviction on their side of the table. And once sides exist in governance, everything becomes adversarial. Communication becomes guarded, decisions are slow, assumptions take over, trust completely evaporates.
The situation was so severe that the government of the day needed to intervene and the outcome was painful for everyone in the end: for staff, for board members, for community and ultimately those we were serving. But what stayed with me is that all of this was unavoidable. All of this was avoidable, not unavoidable, it was avoidable if trust had been nurtured earlier, if those fractures were worked on, if difficult conversations happened sooner and if transparency had been the norm in the organization, it would have been a different story, it would have been a different outcome. So trust is not built in crisis, trust is built in the calmest moments. If I can give you one recommendation out of today is nurture your board and your staff relationships now. Invest in them, protect them, because when hard moments come your way, your strength will come from the trust that you've already built.
And my last reflection is about strong boards needing to commit to learning, preparation and reflection. When they show up, when boards ask generative and curious questions, when we normalize learning, when we evaluate our own performance, not just staff performance or the CEO or the executive director's performance, it creates this culture of curiosity. They carve out time for pause and reflection is how boards become better at each other because remember relationships play a huge huge huge role in this.
And as I reflect on my own journey, I've come to believe that governance is certainly not administration, governance is service, it's khidmah, it's dignity, it gives a sense of belonging and it creates an opportunity for possibility. And so when we lead with heart and with clarity and with equity, with trust, and a sense of commitment to learning and relationships, our organizations simply do not function, I can assure you, they change lives. And those organizations and those boards will continue to enhance and improve the quality of life of those you're serving.
And so I'll leave it there with some of my reflections and I will ask Elizabeth to come on and perhaps we can get to some questions and answers. Elizabeth, I hope this made sense and there was some nuggets of wisdom that I could that I could share but I have to say that much of this learning has been just some reflections that I've garnered through my own career and the teams that I've worked on and you can't discount what you learn from other people.
Elizabeth McIsaac: Lots of nuggets. It all made sense and lots to dive into there. And so I'm going to ask people if they have questions to again drop them into the Q&A box. We did have some people forward questions in advance, but you actually covered a lot of what people were asking.
I want to start first of all just the comment that so much of what you offered was really grounded in the integrity of those things of heart and head and homework and bringing those all together in a way that that works toward the mission of the organization and putting that first.
I think a lot of what you said around building a strong trust-based relationship resonated with people, resonated with me. And I think talking about having you don't build trust in a time of crisis, you build it in an ongoing way. And I wonder if you can just comment a little bit or reflect a little bit on the role of the CEO and the board chair in leading on that and how they can do that together? Because a number of people will talk about an uneven participation in the board and one of the first questions is around how do you help someone who's new to a board where there's not a strong chair or things aren't actively engaged to really get into it? But can you talk a little bit about the leadership of the board chair and the CEO together as really setting that, modelling that trust and that strength.
Aleem Punja: Elizabeth, that's such a great question and the relationship between the CEO or the executive director and the board chair is so incredibly important. In fact, they need to dance together and continue dancing together. And if they have asthma, they might need to take a puffer to be able to continue dancing together. And so they actually set the context for the entire board and the CEO plays a significant role as well. And I reflect my days in in being an executive and supporting a board and not necessarily sitting on a board. The CEO's responsibility is always to bring the issues of the day to the board.
But I remember really clearly that when conversations started to become really corporate, there was one thing that we actually instituted. And everyone because we're in a kind of diverse array of different organizations, people are serving different people, but my experience comes from child welfare. And I remember having a conversation with the board chair in ensuring that we needed to kind of root our conversations in those we were serving.
So at every board meeting, and this was well into the board cycle and well into the maturity of the board, we actually started every board meeting with a story. And it was not to patronize, it was not to kind of share confidential information with the board by any means, but it was to ground the board in a meditative exercise, in a reflective exercise to share a success story of a family of where one of our frontline staff was able to support.
And so that would have not happened if the CEO and the board chair wouldn't have agreed to that approach. And so what it did is it started a conversation on a footing where all of those decisions and it allowed the board chair to facilitate a conversation amongst the board that was rooted in a scenario that the CEO and the executive staff brought to the board. And it allowed decisions to be centred around what the impacts truly were.
And so I do think that it takes a two to tango. I think it takes the board chair and the CEO to be able to have a very trusting relationship with each other.
The other thing, Elizabeth, is when crisis hits, and we know that as nonprofits we're constantly issue managing and we're calibrating and reconciling the strategic conversations and issues management. And especially when we're in an austerity type of environment and there's legislative change that's happening and there's lots of irons in the fire for various different things. And the relationship between the CEO and the chair [is key] for where the CEO can actually bring these issue management pieces to the chair, no surprises at any point in time, and to say, “You know what, this is the issue or the set of issues. This is where I think we need to go, but we need to engage in a discussion with the board to get their advice.”
Because the CEO is only as good as their board and their board is only frankly as good as their CEO and there's a reciprocal relationship there. And I would say the chair is the gatekeeper to that relationship. And so the chair has to be strong, the CEO has to be strong, and therefore, from my perspective, the board will be strong.
Elizabeth McIsaac: Those are great, thank you. So you said quite explicitly you don't build trust in a time of crisis. However, there are boards that find themselves in a place of crisis and so there's a question around do you have any practical suggestions on rebuilding or fostering trust after a with in that period? Like how do you come back up and start to rebuild.
Aleem Punja: Well, I think it's a facilitated process. And I would be remiss to say that using expertise like a coach, a board coach, to come in and facilitate that relationship is incredibly important because sometimes you do need a neutral party to come in to be able to to kind of rebuild that trust that was perhaps broken or perhaps never there.
I do think that centring purpose in in everything that we do, even in and amongst a crisis situation, perhaps more importantly during crisis. And helping to set an environment of having open and transparent conversations with one another that are real that bring those issues forward starts to germinate that trust building.
And the outcomes may may not necessarily be the outcomes that the board or that the organization is leaning towards. It could be a negative outcome or it could be a positive outcome but the outcome doesn't necessarily matter. It's the process from my perspective because sometimes those outcomes are not controllable.
But as the board and the CEO and executive staff continue to work in a crisis environment, there has to be an assumption that we're all starting from the same that we're all starting from the same spot and that the playing field has been levelled. And that the intentionality in terms of our responsibility to the organization and those that we serve and the staff and the volunteers, etc. that intentionality remains the same.
And so working together, knowing that there are different roles but working together in that time of crisis will nurture trust. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you can't build it during crisis, but I think what I'm really wanting to bring home is don't wait to build it during crisis. Ensure that you protect it and you nurture it in times of where there's not crisis because we know that crisis is not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.
Elizabeth McIsaac: Agreed. A number of people I think in the nonprofit sector struggle with the question of recruitment. Now I know you didn't touch on recruitment in your presentation but I'm going to put you on the spot and ask you to think out loud. How do we attract new members? How do we do that and achieve some of the goals around the organization? Young people getting young people in, ensuring inclusion of the community that you're serving, are those important criteria? What are some of your thoughts on the priorities of recruitment but also the real challenges in terms of volunteerism and and skills and all of that?
Aleem Punja: Elizabeth, we are in and amongst tough economic times. We're in a situation where those who traditionally would come forward to serve may not necessarily be able to serve. We're in times where the communities that we're serving that should be on the board because the board should reflect those communities may not be able to step forward because of various different reasons. And that's an assumption and perhaps that's a bit of a bias but I am seeing this in the different boards that I sit on or that I advise with or that I support as executive staff. It's a reality that we're I think all experiencing across different sectors especially because many of the boards and the nonprofit are volunteer boards.
But I do think that a way to mitigate those situations is for organizations to have solid communication strategies and social media strategies. And I see that many a time organizations that use platforms to communicate their messaging in their community that are embedded in the community where they're able to report their findings where there's wonderful nuggets of real life examples that they can use, those are all important tools to be able to communicate to the masses. And using existing platforms on social media and other ways to bring the organization's message forward.
And I think the more that organizations open the door for public board meetings, for different events that one could have whether it's online or in person, I'm biased to in-person events now, it creates a sense of camaraderie, it creates a sense of, “Wow, I really want to be a part of that board” or “I really want to be a part of that that mission in the organization.”
And so I do think that boards and the CEO in many cases have a responsibility to be able to share the story and use platforms to be able to share that story to get those messages across.
It's not only about the roles matrix and putting kind of the spec online on Charity Village or what have you. It is about using very diverse ways. And I think a lot of the times it's really going down to the grassroots, Elizabeth. Really talking to people that you're serving, going right down into community if you're a grassroots organization and talking about the importance of the reason why boards exist.
Because sometimes people think, “Well, it's just bureaucracy, why do boards exist?” There's actually a fiduciary responsibility and there's a legal construct in terms of why boards exist. Organizations require them.
And I think once you start to have those conversations and build that awareness and education around how one could have impact to shape the trajectory of an organization or a sector or an association, etc. you could start to excite people.
And I think that, and perhaps [it’s] a little overused, but I still do feel that it is an important conversation to continue having. Many of private sector organizations use these opportunities as their corporate purpose or their ESG. And so I think that capitalizing on that corporate purpose conversation is also important. But remember you do need a diverse makeup on that board.
Elizabeth McIsaac: You just touched on something and a thread that I want to pull. And you said that you have a bias for in-person. And I think in the last five years meetings became much it was much easier to get quorum if we just had the meeting online. People are working less in person and board meetings are no different. Is there a trust imperative to bringing people together in person to strengthen that engagement, that relationship, that trust building?
Aleem Punja: Elizabeth, I've been reflecting on this a lot and as we're engaging in conversations in terms of people going back into workspaces and convening happening again post a pandemic world, I think that we have to approach this with intentionality. And relationship building is so incredibly important and that really happens when you're able to break bread together and you're able to engage in a dialogue and in discourse when you are when you're sitting across from one another.
I do think that the virtual space is an enabler to getting work done. It's an enabler and it's also served as a tool of inclusion because those who have barriers that are not necessarily able to come in-person have an option to still have a sense of belonging through an online engagement.
So I am a firm believer that you need both. I'm not biased to it being one way or the other, but use the online stuff as an enabler and try to commit to at least having 50 to 60% of your board meetings in-person and perhaps hybrid for those who are unable to make it because again it creates that level of inclusion and engagement and participation where you may not necessarily have it could be a barrier.
But I do think that the hybrid approach is incredibly important but come in person when you can because we're humans and we and that heart-to-heart relationship can happen so much quicker and with so much impact if both of us are in a room together.
Elizabeth McIsaac: I share your bias.
Aleem Punja: I hope I convinced people on that. Don't get rid of the online because it is important and it is an enabler.
Elizabeth McIsaac: It is an enabler and it can also act as a real function for inclusion. Absolutely so it has it has purpose as well. This is I think the perennial question of boards and CEOs: How do you strike a balance between governing versus managing? You want to learn about the frontline issues, you need to know the frontline issues, you need to understand what staff are dealing with, but doing so without being drawn into conversations that are in the weeds rather than looking at the horizon. So getting that balanced. Some suggestions on how to remind board members to focus on the big picture or how to focus on the big picture while being conscious of the realities.
Aleem Punja: You know, Elizabeth, this is really challenging in the sectors that we work in, particularly in the non-profit, because as board members are engaging in in organizations that have quite deep deep purposes, it's very hard to cross that line and it's very hard to shall I say kind of stay in your lane as a board member because the intentionality of that board member is to support those who the organization is serving. And sometimes you forget that you are actually supporting the organization and those the organization is serving through the work that you're doing as a board member.
And so I do think that the CEO plays a big role, the CEO and the chair, but I would say the CEO plays a big role in this as well. And I think bringing information to the board for information only is incredibly important because it provides a context for the board in terms of what the organization is experiencing but it also provides those guard rails in terms of where does the conversation start and stop.
And so for example, if the CEO is thinking about an organizational change in the structure of the organization. For example say that you're looking at having more of a flatlined organization or you need a couple of executive people because the organization is growing, etc. I would say it's the CEO's responsibility and prerogative to bring those pieces to the board and to use the board and the expertise on the board as a sounding board, no pun intended, and to get solid advice so you can make the decision on what makes sense for the organization from a structural perspective.
And if you provide that context in conjunction with the board chair or perhaps the committee chair of HR that when I bring this to the board it's for information, it's for a conversation, I'm not necessarily looking for a motion for how the organizational structure ought to look like. But I'm bringing information to you to get the best advice so I can make the decision on what the organization should look like.
And there's a nuance there and it's it is a dance and it's very very hard to cross that line but it is up to the board chair to be able to manage that conversation and incredibly important for the CEO to be able to brief the board chair or the committee chair and or both before you actually bring some of those things to the board table. And so there is a start and a stop but it is not, I have to say, like it's not a science, it's an art or perhaps it's an art and a science because there's lots of literature on this as well. And so I do think that we have to be really careful when we engage in conversations like this. And we do have to ensure that boards provide empowerment to the CEO to be able to actually fulfill their responsibilities as well. So it's kind of a reciprocal relationship if that makes any sense.
Elizabeth McIsaac: Absolutely. I would also just note you mentioned there's a there's lots of literature on this. For those who are newer to the Five Good Ideas series, we always ask presenters to give us some resources for people to dig deeper with. And so if you see if you go back to the handout that Yukon posted earlier there, Aleem assembled some resources for you to take a look at as you want to delve into this more deeply.
I have one last question for you, Aleem, and it's sort of given that blank slate. So many of us in the sector have been involved in starting a non-profit, either starting it up as a as a board member or starting it up as the new director. It's an opportunity, it's an opportunity to get it right, it's an opportunity to set the stage. You don't have the history or the baggage of past stuff. What are the critical success factors if you've got that blank slate, if you're building this? Do you have thoughts on just a couple pieces of advice on how to go about that to build a strong organization from the ground up with a new board?
Aleem Punja: Elizabeth, that's a great question and you know I do think that nonprofits have to have all of the legal stuff that that you know the registering of the corporation and the bylaws and the and the corporate officers and all that fun stuff and I think that I probably won't focus on that conversation.
But what goes with that conversation is an experience that I had just a few months ago on a board that I sit on and it was such an incredibly important experience. And in some cases this board was reconstituted, so there were members of the board that the board was reconstituted for various reasons and so many of us were new. The CEO is new within the last within the last year and so are members of the executive team.
And what was really cool is once we renewed our bylaws, once we renewed the shareholders direction because there was one because it's a subsidiary, once we made sure that all of the kind of legal requirements were there, we engaged in a principles exercise. And this was probably one of the most coolest things for me, maybe because I'm a social worker and I and that the touchy-feely stuff is something that I incredibly value.
But I have to say it changed the way that people felt in that organization and it brought purpose to the conversation. And so we created a set of principles and those principles were about the organization, those that we serve, it was about staff and it was about the work of the organization. And those principles, we had a facilitated discussion; we documented those principles; we put it on the website; we created examples of how to actualize those principles in reality.
And it actually is the basis of how that board functions or how the organization functions now. And so as new non-profits are starting up, it's incredibly important to do all of the important things with Corporations Canada and all that sort of jazz, but engage in an exercise where you can create a set of principles for your organization that touch on the various important aspects of the organization because that will be your touchstone.
That's the guiding light, that's the touchstone where you could actually bring into the board meeting, remind people of that before you engage in a board meeting and it perhaps could be a bit of a ritual for for the board to visit those principles before every single board meeting and reflect on those principles after every board meeting. So Elizabeth, that's my advice for new nonprofits, don't forget that the principles are incredibly important.
Elizabeth McIsaac: It's the guardrails.
Aleem Punja: It's the guardrails, exactly.
Elizabeth McIsaac: Yeah. No, that's a wonderful place to end this. Thank you, Aleem, so much. I think the way that you have framed this as heart, head, and homework is such a wonderful intuitive but insightful way of really grappling with all of the different elements that you've talked about today.
