Death by Committee

Considering how much time 'Not for profit' organisations spend in meetings, its astonishing how bad most of them are at doing them properly! 


Its not just the quality of the Chairperson: too often; if Trustees or Committee members read the relevant papers on the way to the meeting, they feel they've done well. They're volunteers after all and those with the best skills and experience to be board members also tend to be the busiest. Its an imposition to expect them to WORK for nothing, the organisation should be grateful they show up at all. I've reported to committees who didn't have the first idea of what they were supposed to be doing and witnessed other treating their workers like low caste servants: one lot sat on what appeared to be a healthy bank balance that turned out to be a grant for work that they had to pay back to the funder a year after the work was supposed to have been completed, because they thought they were showing good management by refusing to allow the work to take place. The one thing these "elders" WERE clear on was that they should receive respect, -because they were old!


Just as bad are the committees made up of people too 'polite' to state the bleeding obvious: the ones who will nod 'sagely' when one of their number spouts utter rubbish. No one will risk being seen as "not nice" or "a stirrer" so they ignore the problem to the detriment of the organisation. Then there are committees littered with individuals who think that being on a committee increases their "social standing".


I've had some strange experiences; like working for the committee who told me they didn't believe in "...the concept of a lesbian and gay community" despite running a LGBT community centre! -Another group constantly told me I was "doing too much" and "in danger of burning out" whilst I countered that I was protecting my job by doing what was necessary with limited resources in hard times. The reality was of course that what I suggested meant THEY would have to do more work so eventually the organisation collapsed- exactly as I predicted it would. Then there was the  organisation that refused to pursue an offer of £32m to build a major arts facility because "it might fail"!!! I've often had difficulties reporting to committees, but the lowest point was being called a bully in when I responded angrily to the wishy-washy witterings of someone whose own work colleagues referred to as "a space cadet" and giggled behind their back.

I sometimes experience a Cassandra complex because the predictions I've made about organisations I've served have almost invariably been very accurate, but all that has been remembered was that I was "difficult to handle", "confrontational" or "aggressive". If I can avoid reporting to another committee I will. I want the chance to do what I KNOW needs to be done, without having to gain the consent of people for whom being "risk averse" is a way of life. If it fails, fine; I'll go stack shelves, or clean toilets or whatever. Art, culture, heritage, community development and creativity are ALL about risk, the job is to mitigate and plan for them, then do it anyway, not avoid at all cost and atrophy and die.