7 Comments

1. Kerry Olitzky  •  Jan 29, 2010 @10:16 am

   I just note one things. Chabad has no board of directors. They are independent entrepeneurs. They succeed or fail on their own. Something to think about.

2. Larry Kaufman  •  Jan 31, 2010 @4:33 pm

   You raise a number of questions that push my “hot buttons,” but let me start by commenting on the ambiguity in the points you make about board leadership. A distinction is needed between the way the board leads, and the way the board is led. The leadership skills of the congregational president do a lot to set the tone, as well as to steer the ship, but he or she is limited by the consensus that exists, or doesn’t, behind shared goals and visions.

   From what I have observed, the Scheidt seminars of the Union for Reform Judaism do an extremely good job of training incumbent or about-to-be congregational presidents, but I know of no equivalent training program for board members. Typical synagogue orientation programs focus on facts — this is the budget, these are the bylaws — and not on role. And both presidents and trustees need to recognize that the corporate board does NOT provide the model.

   My own recipe, when I was in the trenches, involved making sure that the rabbi and I were pushing the same message, and then forging a consensus behind that message, committee by committee, so that by the time a hot issue came to the board, they were ready not only to approve it but to sell it to the congregation.

   Again, you say “the congregational board is at the heart of that relationship.” (ii.e., staff-lay leader partnership.) But the heart of the heart often lies in the relationship between the president and the rabbi.

3. hherring  •  Feb 2, 2010 @6:05 am

   Larry–your comments deserve several separate blog entries, which I will be writing about. Thanks for identifying a number of those: the role of mission, vision and values; the relationship between the chief professional officer and the chief volunteer officer; the chief volunteer officer (president) and the board….stay tuned. Thanks!

   Rabbi Herring

4. hherring  •  Feb 2, 2010 @6:12 am

   Kerry–a fair point, but, a couple of observations:
   1. Are those the models we want to encourage?
   2. Will non-Chabad rabbis accept the standard of living that Chabad rabbis do–board members play a role in fundraising (or should)
   3. Do we really do the Jewish people a service by not growing synagogue involvement through boards? Admittedly, as I said earlier, most synagogue boards are middling, but rather than through out the model, better to improve and modify it.

5. Michael Laufer  •  Feb 2, 2010 @3:06 pm

   I suggest that a more narrow definition of governance is very helpful in analyzing the issues that you have raised. My understanding is that “governance” refers to the process of decision making within an organization. One could expand this to also include the process of implementation of the decisions made.

   So, at its essence, synagogue governance refers to the way decisions are made and implemented by congregations.

   Congregational decision making is complicated by the items that you discuss – the roles of professionals and lay leadership as well as the legal, ethical and spiritual responsibilities invovled in the decision making.

   When I think about governance through this lens, I don’t see it as limited to the “business” side of the organization. Congregations make decisions on a regular basis about a wide array of items – some of which are focused on the operations and pracitical aspects of running a synagogue (business issues), but many are about the more spiritual, ritual, and philosophical issues of the congregation. And, governance process is involved in all of them.

   Good governance requires a clear understanding of decision making roles and responsibilities. Sometimes, in the congregational world today, we incorporate other goals into our governance structures. Some examples would be community building, greater opportunities for greater lay involvement, creating a culture of participation and shared responsiblity, to name a few.

   I think that what you are really talking about are the best structures for a collaborative decision making process that properly values and incorporates the shared roles of the laity and clergy in a mission and vision based organization.

   I think that Kerry’s reference to Chabad makes an interesting point. I admit that I am not an expert on Chabad but, doesn’t the rabbbi make all of the decisions? Or, as they would say, G-d makes the decisions and so, why do they need any other form of governance??

6. Larry Kaufman  •  Feb 4, 2010 @3:58 pm

   There is another way to look at the definition of governance, and that is to put it at the top of an organizational pyramid of which the second level is management and the third level is administration.

   In the synagogue setting (and here of course is where Chabad ceases to be pertinent to the discussion), I would submit that governance is the turf of the Board, undertaken with counsel from the staff and particularly with the rabbi’s guidance as to the strictures placed on the decision-making process by Torah, but nonetheless in the laity’s hands: articulating the mission, developing the vision, establishing the policies, and assuring the resources.

   Depending in part on the size of the congregation, and on the place lay involvement has in the mission and vision, management and administration/operations may to some extent be shared responsibilities…tempered always on the one hand by the recognition of the risks in putting a necessary and time-sensitive task into the hands of an unfireable volunteer, and on the other hand by creating the impression that there is a single governator.

   I am fond of two simplistic rubrics regarding board/staff responsibility —
   1. The rabbi is in charge of the bima, the congregation is in charge of the pews.
   2. Two of the most vital roles of the board are explaining the congregation to the rabbi, and explaining the rabbi to the congregation.

   All this addds up to the idea that governance is solely the responsibility of the board, but it is not the board’s sole responsibility.

7. Jordan Goodman  •  Feb 5, 2010 @2:30 pm

   Shalom All,

   Larry wrote: “There is another way to look at the definition of governance, and that is to put it at the top of an organizational pyramid of which the second level is management and the third level is administration.”

   Top down systems of organization and/or governance are dead or dying. To quote NY Times columnist and writer Thomas Friedman, “the world is flat,” and I’ll add that there’s no turning back from this reality.

   Shabbat Shalom/Shavu’a Tov to all of us,

   Biv’racha,
   Jordan

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