Yes, I am writing this Blog post from Riga, Latvia. I am doing a board consultancy with ICANN (The Internet Corporation for the Assignment of Names and Numbers…in case you did not know). Indeed, unless you are the “quasi geek” that I am, you would probably not realize that this is the organization responsible for setting standards and controlling all the internet protocols for names and numbers.
I have worked with these folks before and they are really a great client to work with. They are very receptive to the learning process and have a serious commitment to performing their duties using the best practices of board governance. This is a group of both technical engineering, scientific experts and intellectual property specialists, generally lawyers. They are a complex organization that has elements of a typical non-profit board of directors mixed with many elements of worldwide governance which really looks much like a parlimentary system. A huge challenge for a board, but they do rather well with it.
One of the interesting topics we discussed was the role of board committees and the structure that they have to accomplish their mission. We had an extensive discussion on the subject, and I think that they are moving their think rather effectively. Obviously, because of client confidentiality, I can not comment any of the issues we discussed, but as a result of those discussions it occurred to me that this topic is quite common to all leaders.
Most leaders struggle with how much they do and how much they delegate. It is impossible for any leader, or board of directors, to simply “do” all of the task, duties and responsibilities that comprise their responsibilities. We must delegate some of those to assure that they get done. How we decide what and how we delegate is an essential issue, but an even more essential issue is to have effective controls for monitoring that delegation. If we delegate, without those controls, we are truly abrogating our responsibilities. If you give a task to somebody to do, you can not simply assume it will be done, and done one time correctly. You must have some type of mechanism to assure that it is achieved. It takes more work and discipline on your part, but fail to do it and you are increasing the likelihood that you will fail.
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