Games Board Members Play -- Part 2 of 2

Yesterday, we were discussing the question of why board members would resist the use of performance standards and performance evaluation. We brought up the subject of Eric Berne’s mid-1960s book “The Games People Play.” We were suggesting that one of the reasons board members of nonprofits will play games is that through those types of interpersonal transactions they derive psychological self-aggrandizement, or achieve certain advantages over other members through a series of “adult-to-child” or “child-to-adult” transactions during the process of the board’s conduct of its business. But what, exactly, does such a transaction look like?

You may remember that one of the “games” Berne identified was called “Now I’ve got you!” (Actually, Berne called this game “Now I’ve Got You, You Son Of a Bitch!” and gave it the acronym NIGYYSOB. But we’ll shorten to NIGY, for now.) In this game the object is to embarrass the other person by catching him/her out. The person playing the game sets up the other person for a fall or an indiscretion, then springs the trap and catches the other person as he/she stumbles.

In the board room, Harry might set up the situation with Phyllis by suggesting that “the auction this year really needs to have travel packages.” And Phyllis might reply, “But those are so mundane, I don’t like them and many of my friends don’t like them. Let’s just skip that for this time.” To which Harry replies, “I’ll bet you didn’t know that a recent survey by the American Travel Agents Group found that 85% of people who go to charity auctions think travel packages are the best items offered.” So this makes Phyllis and her friends look either stupid or uninformed. Harry’s inner parent is satisfied that he has “one-upped” Phyllis, and Phyllis’ inner child responds with frustration and rage.

The psycho-dynamics are never directly addressed, never said out loud, and may not develop to a conscious level. But they are operating all the same. The gain Harry has experienced comes at the expense of Phyllis and thus is, so to say, “ill gotten.” The gain for one person happens at the expense of another person. For more on this, I recommend you get Berne’s book. The newest edition is even better than the original.

The significance of this for setting standards of board and individual performance in preparation for regular (annual) performance evaluation is this: If the board members are playing transactional games with one another, they are not going to be sanguine about the presence of objective standards by which their conduct and their contribution to the organization’s governance and mission might be judged. They are going to want to continue to get away with their various games, instead.

So, for example, if they’re involved in micro-management, and thus putting aside and procrastinating on their strategic planning responsibilities, they are going to want to continue their micro-management games because this is where they’re getting their inner personal fulfillment – in the illicitly gotten personal gains of game playing. They are not going to want to be held accountable as “adult-to-adult” for having done a good job in strategic planning, because they haven’t found out how to play their games in that kind of arena, so it will seem foreign to them.

Performance standards, and the application of those standards during performance evaluation, will have the effect of breaking through the games board members play, and getting to the heart of the real reason these board members have been assembled: nonprofit governance.