Gerty The Micro-Managing Board Member

We continue our story from yesterday as we continue the Board room discussion about office furniture purchased by the CEO's office.

“What’s wrong with file cabinets?” interjected Mary Spencer, the local beautician and a new board member. “If we need them to function, why not have them?” She was also irritated with Gerty, because she thought that if they could ever stop haggling about these pesky financial issues the board could get on with doing the strategic planning they badly needed to do. It was partly because the organization had no such plan that they were floundering financially. And the word had gotten out to the community just before the financial support from a local foundation and a few area businesses began to drop off. So it was clear that Turn Around was in trouble in a way that only strong direction and a strategic plan would help.

Her thoughts were voiced by Dan Schmidt, who was also a member of the board of the Fenn Charitable Trust, a local foundation that had helped Turn Around with significant grants on more than one occasion.

“What we really need to concentrate on,” said Dan, “is getting to our strategic planning process. Can we just approve this budget and then get on with the task we really must accomplish? It’s important that we concentrate on getting out of this financial morass by raising funds to meet the need, and we can’t do that until we have a case for support, and we can’t do that until we create our strategic plan and know where we’re going.”

“Well fine, then,” said Gerty. “I was just trying to help. But if you don’t want that help, why don’t you just fire me off the board. Obviously I have failed in doing my duty to the Turn Around organization by pointing out that our CEO has not brought to us the need and gotten our approval for that expenditure. She also hasn’t done very well in raising the funds we need to function in this organization. We’re $100,000 off the mark for our fundraising effort, and here we are spending money like crazy! So if you don’t care about that, I’ll just quit.”

“No, there’s no need for that, Gerty,” said Bob. “We want you to be with us and we want your input. We want everyone’s input. Everyone here has important strengths they bring to our board. But perhaps we could move on to other matters, if you have no objection? We do need to get through out agenda today. We have a lot on our plate.”

“I defer to your judgment,” Gerty said as she sat back in her chair. “But I say we need more communication from the CEO in advance for these expenses, and I’m not sure that things are being run as we’d like to have them."

And with that she sulked her way through the rest of the board meeting.