Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Getting to Strategic and Generative Governance: Beginning the Journey with Your Board

Getting to Strategic and Generative Governance:  Beginning the Journey with Your Board

We live in a time of profound change. Faced with shrinking budgets, rapidly evolving community needs, a hostile political climate, and ever more intense public scrutiny, nonprofits are finding that it’s not enough to simply update a mission statement or patch over a list of outdated goals. In order to meet the challenges of building long-term financial sustainability, weighing strategic restructuring options, planning for leadership succession, and more, boards need to think and act differently.

Some boards are already making the transition by applying the lessons of the book, Governance as Leadership. This leadership model challenges boards to engage in three modes of thinking and decision-making: fiduciary, strategic and generative. While all three are important, the third, generative thinking, is receiving the most attention. Thinking further into the future about new possibilities through generative mode thinking, can lay the groundwork for board leaders to develop breakthrough strategies that will assure increased mission impact and sustainable growth in the future.

It has been my experience that once nonprofit leaders begin to grasp the importance - and necessity - of strategic and generative governance, they want to know more about it AND they want to know HOW to do it. They ask: what tools and activities will help us begin to govern strategically and generatively?

Interested in Enhancing The Capacity of Your Board for Strategic and Generative Governance?

We offer a number of training and consulting programs to help you do this. These offerings will provide a practical introduction to strategic and generative thinking and offer concrete ways to apply this approach in your board. As a result of these programs, you will:
·         Gain knowledge of the Governance As Leadership framework with emphasis on strategic and generative mode thinking;
·         Grasp the implications of strategic and generative thinking for the design and conduct of future board, committee and staff meetings;
·         Leave with a toolkit of activities, methods, and practices for incorporating strategic and generative thinking into the ongoing work of your board and committee structure;
·         Develop an initial action plan to apply these tools in the coming year.

For more information, contact us at FrankMartinelli@createthefuture.com


Check out my latest LinkedIn blog post on: Tapping The Connection between Scenario Thinking & Mental Models


In preparation for a recent Board Of Directors Retreat, we engaged in two activities that have been shown to increase the capacity of board leaders for strategic and generative thinking. The results of these activities fueled the move to increased strategic and generative governance on the part of this board and others with whom we have worked. To learn more, check out my latest LinkedIn blog post on Getting to Strategic and Generative Governance: Tapping The Connection between Scenario Thinking & Mental Models at http://tinyurl.com/qa7hgwl