Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Board of directors setting boundaries

[Cheryl Charis-Graves (ccharis]

 > ---Individual members ot the board are called at home and expected to
> immediately step in and handle situations that arise over the course of
> the day. 
> 
> ---Issues that fall within the pervue of our teams are being sent directly
> to the board, rather than first to the relevant team, with a carbon copy
> to the board so that the board is aware of the issue but not immediately
> responsible for responding to it.  What's the point of having teams at all
> if everything goes straight to the board for action?

I, too, am on our board of directors -- we call ourselves the "coordinating
council."

I get a lot of questions directed my way, but I do think our comm'ty
respects time/space as far as not expecting board members to be "on call"
all the time. They have expressed more concern about board members burning
out with too many demands on them, so I think they do try to lessen the
burden when they can.

We ? after MUCH discussion ? changed from the team structure to a "point
person" system. Each person has responsibility for a "cluster" of tasks,
e.g. Turf maintenance. Point persons don't necessarily have to do the work
itself, but they coordinate the tasks required and are responsible for
making sure the task gets done, possibly by a work crew on comm'ty work
days. Each coordinating council rep is responsible for coordinating the
tasks of 4-5 point people, e.g., buildings, grounds, finances.

We don't have team meetings anymore, as individuals are responsible for
their specific areas. The list of "tasks" came from the teams, and was split
into "critical" and "non-critical."

We're a year + into it. In some ways, it works well for some people. Having
fewer meetings is WAY better for a lot of people. You would think the lines
of responsibility are clear, but they're not always.

But we're 7 years into it, so have worked through a lot of stuff already.
And still, it's a struggle to figure out how to get certain things done.

I have a couple of suggestions:

1. Say in a friendly-but-firm voice what YOUR boundaries are, e.g. Please
feel free to contact me when ... Be specific. Time, circumstance, after
they've checked the manual, whatever. Then, when someone forgets, and they
will, say you'd be happy to talk with them ... (time, circumstance, etc.)

2. If the issue comes before the board without going to the team, refer it
on to the team. If you handle it, the expectation will be that you will
continue to handle such things in the future. Remind the comm'ty at your
comm'ty meeting, but the most powerful action you have is to simply NOT act
on the issue and turn it over to the most appropriate team. Will it take
more time? Yes, that's partly why we did what we did. But you do have a team
structure in place, and that's where those actions need to occur.

My .02 anyway,


-- 
Cheryl Charis-Graves
Harmony Village Cohousing
Golden, Colorado
http://www.harmonyvillage.org



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