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Policy Governance

Author and consultant John Carver created the Policy Governance® model, a complete theoretical foundation for the board's governance role in business, nonprofit, and government organizations. I once heard Carver say that Policy Governance was an invention, not a discovery. My guess is that the mother of his invention was not necessity, but desperation.

The Policy Governance model is defined by the Carver website as follows: "Policy Governance® is an integrated set of concepts and principles that describes the job of any governing board. It outlines the manner in which boards can be successful in their servant-leadership role, as well as in their all-important relationship with management. Unlike most solutions to the challenge of board leadership, its approach to the design of the governance role is neither structural nor piecemeal, but is comprehensively theory based. The model covers all legitimate intentions of corporate governance codes (including Sarbanes-Oxley), but in a far more comprehensive, theory-based manner."

In my years as the executive of several organizations and later as a consultant for nonprofits, the most perplexing and universal problems always involved the role of the board. I am confident that the axiom, "It is easier to get forgiveness than permission," was first uttered by some nonprofit CEO.

A Presbyterian pastor friend did an informal survey of several hundred pastors, asking them to identify their number-one organizational problem. Almost all said it was the board. I recognized this, too, from personal experience and from observation. As a result, I prepared countless lectures and papers on boards. My discovery of Carver's comprehensive process for board work made all I had done obsolete.

Policy Governance offers many values and benefits. Here are the ones I hear most often from organizations that have implemented the model. Policy Governance:

• Clearly differentiates governance from everything else, especially administration and management;
  
  
• Is the only board concept that begins by stating that the board exists to represent its legal and/or moral owners;
  
  
• Draws a clear line for activities and programs prohibited by the board;
  
  
• Clearly states the board's values and perspectives through its four global policy statements;
  
  
• Releases the creativity and freedom of the staff;
  
  
• Frees both staff and board from the quagmire of asking and giving permission for staff activities;
  
  
• Puts the board in the role of leading leaders, rather than merely responding to staff initiatives;
  
  

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