Year: 2010

Do companies care about the intent of one’s actions, or just the results? While we think that our intentions should matter, if an unethical action takes place, do we really care why?

Let me know what you would do in the following dilemma:

Alternative #1 –

You are taking care of a chatty 3-year old. While strolling past a market your companion sees her favorite food, a banana, in the window of the market. Your friend needs to have a banana…NOW. Unfortunately you have no cash on you, having left your wallet in the car 6 blocks back. The child is now making quite a scene. Would you go into the store and take a banana without paying for it? If so, how would you justify it?

Alternative #2 –

Your are shopping with your 3-year old companion inside the market. She is in the shopping cart. As you pass through the fruits and vegetable section you put a bunch of bananas in the cart. She of course wants one now. You give her a banana to eat while you shop, fully intending to tell the cashier at check-out that your child ate a banana. However, you are understandably distracted during the check-out process and only after getting the groceries in the car and “Precious” into her car seat do you realize that you didn’t mention, or pay for the banana. Do you go back into the store and pay for the now eaten banana? If not, how do you justify it?

The intent of the actions in the two alternatives seem quite different. One seems like shop lifting and the other seems like just another day of parenting. Yet the results are the same: the store is left with one unaccounted for banana.

An ethics issue? In the next post we’ll look at the ramifications inside a company for similar decisions.

Too often, when Board members struggle with attendance, participation or decision making, they simplistically resort to a Board training session or undertake team building to address their problems. Those techniques seldom work to address those problems.

Why Board Training Alone Seldom Restores Boards

It is not uncommon that Board members want a “quick fix” to their issues merely by undertaking a short Board training session. They have the illusion that their problems are the result of members not knowing their jobs. That is like believing that you can stop people from arguing merely by telling them not to do that anymore. If a training session was the solution, then members could easily solve their issues merely by downloading free Board job descriptions from the Web. Besides, if members are not coming to Board meetings, they probably will not attend a Board training either.

Board members rarely struggle because members lack understanding of their legal roles and responsibilities. New information in members’ heads is rarely enough to make a major difference. Instead, members need ongoing guidance, support and accountabilities to actually use that new information. That comes from a combination of activities, for example, evaluating the health of the Board, helping members understand what is required for long-lasting change, Board orientation and Board training for members, refining the organization of the Board, coaching the Board Chair and other leadership roles to drive changes, and then re-evaluating the health of the Board.

Why Team Building Alone Seldom Restores Boards

Team building is conducted to improve the performance of a team, or small group of people. There are a wide variety of approaches to team building. Too often, the approach is to improve performance primarily by trying to improve team members’ feelings, beliefs and perceptions about themselves and each other. That approach rarely works for Boards that have major, ongoing struggles. Actually, that approach to team building can make the situation much worse when the good feelings from team building quickly encounter the same dysfunctional structures on the Board, resulting in even more frustrated – and now cynical – Board members.

We have learned a great deal about what makes for high-performing teams. In addition to respecting themselves and each other, all team members need to have the same clear understanding of certain structures, including:

1. The purpose of the team.
2. How decisions are made and problems are solved, and how communications will be done.
3. Each member’s current roles and responsibilities.
4. What authority and resources the team has to work with.

Lack of the above structures often is the primary cause of prolonged frustration, blaming and conflicts among team members. Teams can be formed to be self-organizing, self-directed or self-managed, but to be successful, they must ensure that they have the above-listed structures in whatever form the team decides to take.

What do you think?

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Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD – Authenticity Consulting, LLC – 800-971-2250
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