Roles and Responsibilities

Let’s look at roles and responsibilities. Really important to know who the other decision makers are around the room. Do we have ex officios? Ex officios are usually, you know, the title that’s given, for example to the manager or the CEO that reports to the board. You might also have independent board members. So what are their terms? What are their voting rights? What are your legal roles and responsibilities? I covered that earlier, but I also, you know, reinforce there are those two. 

There are legal roles and responsibilities as per the Constitution and your statutory. But there’s also what does the organisation expect of me? If you’re a secretary, then seek to have had that conversation with board members if it’s not clear if you don’t have a position description and ask them “When would you like the minutes of the meeting sent out?” Now if I was asked that question, I would probably say, “It’d be great to have them “within two days of the meeting that’s just happened.” And so, you know have that conversation and get those expectations. You know, one of the things that we all bring to the board is we bring our own expectations. And some of you may be, may have heard me say, “Look as long as it’s within two days after the meeting.” Some of you might be thinking, “Ah, look, “I’d be happy with a week.” 

So we have different expectations. So come together, make an agreement on what that is and you’ll find that that can actually reduce the potential of conflict as well. The who does what, what is the line between governance and management? Another great one to be really, really clear about when you’ve got staff. Who’s doing what. What’s my job as a board member and what are the staff then responsible for? The other thing to make sure is that we’re not micromanaging. We really need to provide autonomy to the people that are doing the work and proper delegations. 

And ask about, you know, if you’re looking at what we need to do, and what we’re doing, what are the talents, skills, experience, and knowledge that you might need to have that you don’t currently have? Here’s an example of a simple delegations table and that can help you think through who’s doing what. If I had something like this, I’d be like, “Yes, I understand now.” This is gold.