A New Design for Committees By Olan Hendrix   Few aspects of organizational life cause more frustration and waste more time than committees. At the same time, a group of people focused on a task can be a most valuable resource. The difference is in how the group is structured and how it operates.   The traditional committee is characterized by:   Bureaucracy Busyness Ineffectual compromise Inaction Pursuit of personal agendas and confusion   We need to redesign committees so they are characterized by:   Entrepreneurship Action Efficiency and Accomplishment   This design will not only result in important work being accomplished but will bring satisfaction to the people involved.   We need to start with the fundamental question: Why do we have board committees? One, we want to put more minds to work on a problem or task in hopes of realizing the optimum solution. Two, we want to give board members ownership in the organization because, we reason, the more they participate, the more they will support and understand the organization.   The problem is that what happens is far different from the achievement initially hoped for by establishing the committee. Nowhere are committees more dangerous than when they are committees of the Board of Directors. One of two extremes usually sets in. More often than not, board committees assume the mantle of management and attempt to operate programs or staff functions. At the other end of the spectrum, social loafing takes root, albeit with every good intention. (Pamela Lewis, Stephen Goodman and Patricia Fondt in their book, Management, define social loafing as "a tendency of people not to work as hard in groups as they would individually. This phenomenon occurs because their contribution is less noticeable and they are willing to let others carry the workload.")   An effective committee is not a device to keep board members informed and involved; staff reports serve this purpose. Neither should it be to give board members something "constructive" to do. The board members' focus on governance and ends ought not to be diverted for any reason. Board dabbling in management and means can only result in confusion among staff, members, clients and the community at large. Traditional Committee Limitations Most committee problems stem from our blind adherence to tradition. In the past we voted, kept minutes and met without clear reasons; so we continue to do so. Not merely satisfied with the burdens of the past, we eagerly create new baggage as we go along.   Traditional committees are hopelessly bureaucratic. There is too much dependence on group decision-making which limits a manager's ability to act quickly and decisively when necessary. Traditional committees are caught up in the busyness of committee work: keeping unnecessary minutes, abiding by parliamentary rules designed for political debate and maintaining a keen sense of perpetual self-importance. Compromise reigns, resulting in ineffective decisions. Almost always, the results are not optimal for organizational effectiveness or performance. Traditional committees work slowly. Often the problem has been resolved, or dissipated or annihilated the organization before reaction has been defined. Traditional committees, particularly board committees, seek to satisfy personal needs rather than the needs of the organization. Because board members of non-profit organizations donate their time and money, it is difficult to not let them exercise their personal agendas within committee meetings; even more problematic is when peers pander to these agendas and encourage non-issue-centered role-playing rather than issue-centered discussion. Traditional committees always involve too many people, proving the veracity of Shanahand's Law: "The length of a meeting rises with the square of the number of people present." Issues are never clearly focused and dealt with head-on for fear of offending opposing viewpoints within the committee. The usual escape is as described by Hartz's Law of Rhetoric: "Any argument carried far enough will end up in semantics." The New Design for Committees The guiding principle regarding committees is minimalism. An organization that is well managed and governed will generally find no need for any standing committee. A starting point should be zero committees; then and only then, when clearly needed. A committee should not exist unless it is strategic, necessary, useful and helpful.   Assuming there really is legitimate cause for having a committee, let's consider seven rules for healthy committees to function. Call it a Task Force Rather than a Committee While it is true that words are only symbols, they are unbelievably important. We are much more apt to be able to get a group to function efficiently and effectively if we call the group a task force than if we call the group a committee. Task force suggests that there is work to be done and that there is some urgency and importance about it. It suggests that the group is a tactical unit with a beginning and an end. On the other hand, the word committee conjures up memories of long meetings and frustration in the midst of discussion with little being accomplished. Be Mission-Specific Clearly articulate the issue, problem or task to be resolved. The more narrowly drawn the boundaries, the more focused will be the thinking and consideration of the group and the less likely they will be to stray into unrelated management areas. Make it Ad Hoc—Not Standing—in Nature There are occasions when a committee may exist in perpetuity, but rarely. Letting people know at the outset that they will be called together only when there is work to do is a powerful tool. It announces that you are sensitive to their time constraints and serious about accomplishment.   There are times when you may be required by an outside agency or association to have a standing committee, but this is unusual. Board committees should not be created with titles that in any way suggest a duplication of staff functions, because those committees will drift into staff work. Personnel, program and finance committees all denote management functions. Oversight is easily achieved by the board acting as a whole in its review of organizational results. Oversight is not picking at nits, second-guessing the finance director or personnel manager. Require that the Person Ultimately Responsible for the Work Chair it Tradition dictates that when a committee is formed a chairperson is elected along with other officers. The staff person is considered as merely a resource person to the committee. This process only increases the layers in the organizational structure resulting in the staff person having an additional boss. The committee becomes his or her supervisor as well as the staff person to whom he/she already reports. This violates the one-boss rule of good management.   We stand some chance of achieving results when delegating to an individual but never when delegating to a group. If the chairperson is the staff person to whom the work has been delegated, and the committee is there to assist and advise only, we then have the best of both worlds. Groups should be for thinking…individuals are for action. Insist it be Non-Decision-Making in its Role Groups of humans are at their worst when they are making decisions and at their best when they are thinking, knowing in advance they will not be asked to decide.   Alex Osborne, who coined the term "brainstorming" set down five rules for creative thinking in his classic, Applied Imagination. Rule number one was, "All judgment is suspended!" He knew that groups could not be making decisions and be creative at the same time.   There is an old management adage that says the greatest opportunity for crisis comes at the point of group decision-making. Removing decision-making from the group maximizes the light and minimizes the heat. People are much freer to be creative and honest in their views if they know in advance they will not be called upon to take sides. No Rules, no Minutes, no Form When a committee keeps minutes it declares itself to be authoritative rather than advisory. There will be times when individuals may make notes of assignments and ideas, especially the chairperson. Notes as reminders can be helpful, whereas minutes tend to contribute to bureaucracy.   Parliamentary procedure has no place in a think tank. Rules stifle the imagination, forcing people's minds to consider form above function. These are times for brainstorming, not braindraining. Keep the Group Small Involve only those who can bring perspective, experience and talent to the issue. Why exacerbate the problem or issue by inviting lack of perspective, inexperience and people with no relevant skills to search for the resolution? A wealthy donor does not an effective task force member make! Reward and involve these people in other ways that are not detrimental to the mission of the organization.   Keep the number of people small. I suggest that you never exceed seven. This is the maximum number; it seems, beyond which social loafing, role-playing and all the negative baggage of group dynamics are set into motion.