Tuesday, February 8, 2011
"Governing in Networked Ways" Sounds Great, but How Realistic is It?
I was particularly interested in the last chapter of Kanter and Fine's (2010) book titled "Governing Through Networks." While reading the authors' description about what a board meeting could look like in a networked nonprofit, I thought the description sounded great; however, I wondered how realistic it really is. Specifically, I was thinking about all of the changes that would need to be made to the routines of boards in nonprofits across the country to get them to the point described in the book. While the authors state that incremental changes are fine, I wonder how even these incremental changes would take place. Would an organization need someone to step up and "champion" change? Who should begin the change - the executive director, or the board chair (or someone else)?
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Kate,
ReplyDeleteI agree that the changes described in the book would be an enormous undertaking and may not be possibly for many organizations. Last summer at the United Way, we participated in several "webinars" put on by the national United Way office. Those who wanted to participate could listen to an audio stream of the webinar while also seeing the PowerPoint presentation on their computer screens. There was also a chat box, and any observers could post questions that would be answered at the end of the presentation. I think that something like this could be an incremental step toward making the board meetings more open, without creating a situation with too much input.
Of course, this still leaves the challenges of getting access for those that wanted to participate, and the costs of implementing new technology. I also think that in order for the changes to be successful, all of the leaders of the organization, such as the executive director and the board chair, need to support them. So I wouldn't necessarily think that one person in particular should start the change, just that the people you mentioned must be "won over."
Kate and Hayley,
ReplyDeleteI'm one that believes that change should come "from the top." If the director, or the board do not set a culture for the organization, then things most likely do not change.
So, although I mean it has to come from the top, you still need the organization to buy into making changes. The challenge is how to you show them that the new culture will be effective? So many of us now are trying to get by with our day to day tasks that it would take too much time and effort to introduce all of these new ways of sharing information.
My ultimate thought though is that it is very much time well spent. The future savings could be endless because becoming networked can help spread the word about the organization and it can also prove to much more efficient than the "old." way.