From Rachel Toor
In a recent conversation with my friend and colleague Sarah Hardesty Bray, whom many of you know from her years of excellent work at The Chronicle of Higher Education, AGB, CASE, and now as an editor at IHE, we discussed what it's like to work with leaders.
I mentioned my delight at how readily most presidents accept editing, even when I have to slash-and-burn carefully crafted prose to fit with our quirky Sandbox rules (no promotion! no advice!). These big deal folks exhibit so little ego and so much willingness just to get the ideas out there that I am humbled to be working with them.
Sarah said she felt the same way, and agreed it was often the best writers who fuss the least when faced with editorial suggestions.
She also said something about her job that she wishes all the authors she’s edited, and will edit, understood. She isn’t criticizing them when she edits—she just earnestly wants to help them get their message across as well as possible. "In that respect, I see my role in some ways like a fashion consultant,” she said. “I simply want to make writers look as good as they can when they go out into the world."
If you're among those of us lucky enough to have been edited by her, you know that being on the receiving end of her virtual red pen feels like love.
Our chat reminded me of what good consultants do. They help successful people get to the best versions of themselves. Sometimes that includes doling out tough love, as is often the case when dealing with boards.
You know how it goes. VPs, provosts, and deans spend a whole bunch of time running reports, preparing data, and creating presentations because the board is coming, the board is coming, the board is coming!
Board books get generated. Many, many pages, zillions of graphs, charts, and appendices. Give ‘em everything!
In case you missed our Sandbox (Live!) discussion about managing boards last spring, Cathy Trower said the biggest board book she’d ever seen was 900 pages. You could practically hear multiple jaws dropping when Peter Eckel topped that and said his record was 2,500. Pages.
So, the question is: does the board even read what’s given to them?
Nope.
The experts said, “We know that they don't read them.” Sometimes you can even see this in board meetings (public university boards are open and many can be watched on Zoom) because you realize if they had read the materials, they wouldn't have asked the questions they ask.
The key, the experts advised, is to give boards less information with more meaning. And to remember the goal is to draw out the collective wisdom of the group. Most boards want to help and it’s essential to help them do that. And in fact, they are generally accomplished, smart, and successful people and have expertise that can be useful.
One path to success is to direct their focus on what matters and to be very clear. “Here are the two critical questions or the issues we want your help with. That’s the purpose of this meeting. Here’s the structure we’ve set up to do that in an organized way.”
Many presidents with the best intentions will periodically send readings to board members, clippings of things they think the board should know about. That is all to the good; it's in everyone's interest to have educated trustees.
But often, our experts warned, the trustees are like, "Well, I read it. But I don’t know what I'm supposed to do with this information.”
As someone who often forwards articles to people believing they can read my mind and will know exactly why I’ve decided to send a particular piece, I found this comment both obvious and brilliant.
Before you send something, the board whisperers suggested, add two or three questions to guide their reading. Or even a few sentences as a cover note that explains the relevance. That framing can be really important and lead to better conversations.
They shared another trick. Create a survey with a dozen items and ask whose decision each should be. President? Board? Shared? These could be real issues on your campus. Who decides if we close a program? Who decides if we start a competitive origami team?
Then, have everyone on the leadership team and all the trustees take the survey anonymously. Share and discuss the results. Get it all out in the open, on the table.
There was a lot more in our conversation, and since both Peter and Cathy serve on boards as well as advising them, they closed with some things they’d want presidents to address from the perspective of trustees. Peter was well prepared to do that, having just written a piece for Inside Higher Ed with specific suggestions for conversations administrators need to have with their boards right now.
