Maintaining PBG
We at Unity Church-Unitarian of St. Paul tend to use our board retreats
as a way to renew our understanding of how the church is now operating.
We usually have a section describing the Shared Ministry model and do
an over view of Policy Governance. We try to schedule separately and
outside of retreat time a session for new board members that orients
them to Policy Governance. I like to use the "Policy Governance
in a Nutshell" piece [see Articles].
We have also used a Policy Governance consultant to walk folks through
the model. Outside expertise is always a joy if you can afford it.
PG education is the education of board, staff, and congregation in Policy
Governance. We all need to understand how language, relationships, and
interactions will be different. At Unity Church we have done a decent job of it
with the board (annual retreat with a Policy Governance consultant to do
training) but have barely touched on training with staff or membership. With
Policy Governance the board delegates the "means" (operations) to the
executive and does not direct staff, does not dictate the means to be used in
carrying out board policy with regard to RE, worship, finance, social justice,
membership, maintenance, etc.
Staff can be unsure how to react to board members' comments about their
program areas and board members ( I for one) walked on eggshells with staff so I
wasn't perceived as "messing with the means" (as we at Unity came to
call it.) For example, if in a conversation with the RE Director, a board member
says how much s/he wants RE to move in thus and so a direction it can be
interpreted as a board member "messing with the means" and trying to
influence staff. Since the board ALWAYS speaks with one voice and ONLY speaks
through policy, this conversation must be taking place with the board member's
"board hat off," as we say. I frequently said, "I'm now talking
with my board hat off," as a way of clarifying roles and allowing me to
enter my role as a member of the congregation. I'd like to see Policy Governance
churches have a workshop day for board AND staff to give the model a test drive
in a safe environment.
While we have run many, many newsletter articles about Policy Governance and
have had it in place for about 7 years, I'd say that most in our congregation
still think when we're talking about board policy we're talking about operations
policies and all decisions at the operations (program) level are made by the
board. At any rate, mutual understanding of the model would go a long way in
easing into new relationships and new communication patterns.
Gretchen Dorn
Unity Church-Unitarian
St. Paul, MN
12 Aug 1999