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Definitions
Policy Governance uses many terms you probably haven’t heard before. Here are some definitions to help you learn the lingo:
Written statements that completely embody the Board’s beliefs, commitments, values, and vision. There are four policy categories Boards must address: ends, executive limitations, Board governance style, and Board/Executive relationship.
One of the four types of policies that the Board writes, ends define what results are to be achieved, for whom, and at what cost. “Written with a long-term perspective, these mission-related policies embody most of the Board’s long-range planning”* Determining ends, and avoiding involvement in means, is the pivotal Board duty in policy governance and what frees both groups to concentrate on what matters most. Read the Unity Church Ends Statements.
One of the four types of policies that the Board writes, executive limitations define what the staff can NOT do as they work to accomplish the ends. While this approach may seem negative, executive limitations are, in practice, very liberating, as they allow the staff the fullest possible range of their creativity. They can do anything they want to make the ends become reality, provided they do NOT do the few things spelled out in the executive limitations. Read the Unity Church Executive Limitations policies.
One of the four types of policies that the Board writes, Board Governance policies identify the Board’s philosophy, its accountability and the specifics of its own job. Read the Unity Church Board Governance policies.
Board/Executive Relationship Policies or Board-Staff Linkage:
One of the four types of policies the Board writes, these policies clarify how the Board delegates authority to staff, and how it will evaluate staff performance in relation to the ends and executive limitations. Read the Unity Church Board/Executive Relationship policies.
The staff arrangements and actions needed to accomplish the ends or to protect the operations that produce the ends. Notice how policy governance intentionally gives staff full responsibility for determining what means they’ll use to accomplish the ends and how they’ll stay within the executive limitations. This is why policy governance works so well to release staff creativity and power and frees Board time to focus on the long-range planning issues that matter most.
The tools Boards use to track whether the staff is accomplishing the ends and staying within the executive limitations. “If you haven’t said how it ought to be, don’t ask how it is,” is the PG monitoring principle that forces Boards to think carefully about what they want, what means they won’t accept in getting it, and then to spell it out in written policies so they and the staff know what will be expected and monitored.
If the board’s primary responsibility is to write high-level policies on behalf of its moral ownership, the board needs a way to connect with its owners, to hear what they have to say and to represent them effectively. This process of connecting and listening to the organization’s moral owners is called linkage.
“Policy Governance recognizes foremost that boards exist to own the organization on behalf of some identifiable ownership to which they are answerable. Simply put, the board governs on behalf of persons who are not seated at the board table.”* Determining who your organization’s ownership is, who gives the board authority and accountability, isn’t always easy. Often, you’ll have owners that aren’t legal owners. For this reason, PG uses the term “moral ownership” to include all owners, in both a moral and a legal sense. Read the Unity Church Statement of Moral Ownership.
The tools boards use to assess the executive’s performance on accomplishing the ends and remaining within the executive limitations.
The tool that holds the board accountable for its work, the perpetual calendar holds due dates for linkage, policy updates, monitoring work and evaluation work.
The tool that the board chair uses to keep meetings focused on the work appropriate for the board.
* from “Basic Principles of Policy Governance” by John and Mirriam Carver, published by Jossey-Bass San Francisco: 1996