1:00

My guest today is Dr Kurt Sinski

1:02

. He is the founder and principal

1:05

of CEO Board Services

1:07

, a consulting firm that specializes

1:09

in working with mission-oriented organizational

1:12

leaders and boards around issues

1:14

of governance , strategy , organizational

1:17

structure , succession planning , coaching

1:19

and mergers and acquisitions

1:22

. For 23 years

1:24

, dr Sinski has served as

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Chief Executive Officer of Upbring , formerly

1:29

Lutheran Social Services of South

1:31

, a multi-faceted

1:33

, multi-state social agency with

1:36

an annual operating budget of over $100

1:38

million and 1,000 employees . It

1:40

has been responsible for more than quadrupling the

1:42

size of the agency and steering

1:45

a once-troubled agency back to financial

1:47

strength . During his tenure , the organization

1:49

eliminated indebtedness of $60

1:52

million and currently enjoyed the endowment

1:54

of over $40 million . Dr

1:56

. Senske completed his graduate work at Gordy University, exas, and Valparaiso Gor Dr

2:01

University in Indiana , majoring in

2:03

accounting , with a Bachelor of Science

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degree in Business Administration . He

2:08

holds a Juris Doctorate Degree from

2:10

the University of Illinois College of Law

2:12

and a Master of Arts Degree in International

2:15

Relations from Schiller International

2:17

University in Paris , france , with

2:19

a PhD in Government from

2:22

University of Texas , austin . He

2:24

is the author of five books the CEO

2:26

and the Board , the Art of Non-Profit

2:29

Governance as a Competitive Advantage

2:31

. Wine in the World , word

2:33

Savior and Serve the

2:36

Calling Live a Life of Significance

2:38

, executive Values , a Christian

2:40

Approach to Organizational Leadership and Personal

2:42

Values God's Game Plan

2:45

for Life . He's a gifted public

2:47

speaker . He also has a guest columnist

2:49

with a variety of issues for

2:51

newspapers and magazines , as well as regular

2:53

commentator on television

2:56

, podcasts and radio . He

2:58

and his wife , lori , live in Austin , texas

3:00

, and their proud parents of their daughter

3:02

, sydney and Sonna Lakoti , welcome

3:05

Dr Sinski to the podcast . Kurt

3:08

, it's good to have you on the podcast . I'm looking forward

3:10

to this conversation , but I'd like to get my guest have

3:12

an opening question . What's the best

3:15

piece of advice you ever received ?

3:17

Keith . What's interesting , I think , about my background

3:20

is that every single person

3:22

for generations was either

3:24

a church worker or a farmer

3:27

. I knew I had absolutely

3:29

no talent to be in a farmer , but I also didn't want

3:31

to be a church worker , and

3:33

I was at Valparaiso University at the time

3:35

. We were at church , I was home on a break , my

3:38

father was talking to another

3:41

member of the church and he was jokingly

3:44

telling them yeah , my son wants to be a lawyer

3:46

. And the comment

3:48

that the person replied

3:51

I'll never forget . He said well

3:53

, you know , I think the world needs

3:55

an ethical attorney more than it needs

3:57

another church worker . And

4:00

I've always remembered that comment , because

4:03

it's the understanding

4:05

that each of our vocations

4:07

, each of our lives matter , and

4:10

there is not necessarily a ranking of

4:12

one better than the other . It's how we use

4:14

our unique God-given gifts as

4:17

a part of our own vocation . And so

4:20

that was the piece of advice

4:22

. Now , God has a funny sense of humor , right ? Because

4:24

for the past 25 years I've been a church worker , but

4:27

at the time I didn't quite know it .

4:29

That's great . I love that . That's great

4:31

advice to have someone kind of remind you that we

4:33

do need . Every profession

4:35

matters and everything that we do has

4:38

a God-given vocation attached

4:40

to it . So , yeah , knowing that you

4:42

have a special , unique place in the world and God can

4:45

still use you is just kind of a nice reminder

4:47

for all of us that , no matter what we're doing in

4:49

life , god can use us where

4:51

he's placed us to be a blessing .

4:53

Yeah , no , absolutely , absolutely . And

4:56

so I tried to remember that , as I was

4:58

an attorney and then I worked in politics and

5:00

sometimes it's hard to keep your face strong

5:02

when you're working in politics I bet it's

5:05

always a great reminder to me that my

5:07

vocation was important , no matter what Exactly ?

5:10

I'm curious , Kurt , as you think about your life , who are

5:12

some people who serve to inspire

5:14

you and maybe even meant to you along the way ?

5:17

You know , keith , and I

5:19

tend to think of my life in chapters

5:21

, maybe so when I practice law . There

5:23

is this , an attorney , who is maybe four years older than

5:26

me , who , no matter how busy

5:28

he was , he would take the time to mentor

5:30

me , to answer any question . I had to

5:32

make sure that I was successful in my own

5:34

role . He didn't need to do that , but

5:36

he just took me under his wing . His name was DJ

5:39

Sartorio . I'm just absolutely loved

5:41

and respected that individual . I

5:43

then got into politics , and among

5:45

the people that I worked for was Governor Mike

5:47

de Cacus , especially when

5:49

he ran for president , and

5:51

what I really respected about the

5:53

governor is that he

5:56

taught me how you can be an ethical politician

5:59

and also be a good family

6:01

man and be a politician , because

6:03

both of those were pretty rare then

6:05

and probably even more rare today

6:08

, and

6:11

so I found that fascinating . I

6:13

took a kind of a detour and worked at Concordia

6:15

University in Texas for a few years and

6:17

had a couple of mentors there Larry Meisner

6:20

, les Bear and

6:22

what they taught me is how

6:24

to integrate my faith into

6:27

all aspects of my life . So work

6:29

, life , home , community

6:31

, congregation , and

6:34

then , as I became CEO and served as

6:36

CEO for a couple of decades

6:38

. I always formed

6:40

a kitchen cabinet , and

6:43

so people like John Nunes and Paul

6:45

Miles and my wife were people

6:48

that I knew I could go to and have

6:50

that confidential conversation about

6:53

things that maybe I didn't want

6:55

other people to know because I needed good advice

6:57

, and in many ways they became

6:59

my kitchen cabinet . And

7:02

obviously , my wife along the way . She has such a strong

7:04

faith , a former Baptist

7:07

girl growing up who can pray

7:09

with the best of them and witness with the best

7:11

of them . We can all learn a lot from her as well

7:13

. And then , finally , obviously , my parents , who

7:16

taught me what

7:18

it was like to have a great marriage , what it was like

7:20

to live a life of service as church

7:22

workers , as teachers , as executives

7:25

, as administrators . All

7:27

of those are the building blocks

7:29

that resulted

7:31

in someone like myself

7:34

then taking that mantle and

7:36

going on with the next generation

7:38

.

7:38

I love that and you've shared a little bit about

7:40

your personal journey . I'm curious on

7:43

this journey , what lessons

7:45

did you learn to help you write a specialist

7:47

new book on governance ? Because I

7:49

served on many different boards

7:52

and I've discovered that governance

7:54

is an issue not just on boards but

7:56

in churches too . That can be either

7:58

a blessing or it can be the thing

8:00

that ignites a firework storm in

8:02

a building full of firework . So you

8:05

know , kind of tell us how your

8:07

journey helps you kind of pour into

8:09

this particular aspect of the church .

8:12

Yes , so it's interesting . Almost every

8:14

book I write , I have some experience

8:16

in it , but I'm also understanding

8:19

internally that I don't quite have it right

8:21

, and so I want to build on my

8:23

experience but also learn on the lessons

8:25

that are in the research and other people's

8:27

experience and maybe provide

8:29

then other people with a blueprint

8:32

of how to do it even better

8:34

. And that was the same with this book . The

8:36

CEO and the Board and

8:38

you know , having served on 13 different boards of directors

8:40

, having been a CEO , now being a consultant

8:42

, what I realized

8:45

is that there is indeed a lot of frustration

8:47

out there . Right Board members

8:49

want to make a difference , but they don't quite know how

8:51

. Ceos get frustrated , pastors

8:54

get frustrated because they want

8:56

their board to be a partner with them

8:58

in ministry , but oftentimes that

9:00

feels like a hindrance , and

9:02

so the question becomes how do you build

9:05

your unique governance model

9:07

for your church or for your nonprofit

9:09

organization , for your school ? That's

9:11

exactly right for your particular situation

9:14

, because every organization

9:16

, every church , has its own unique culture

9:18

, its own unique history , its own unique

9:21

challenges and opportunities , and

9:24

my experience has taught me , and the research

9:26

has demonstrated , that you

9:29

need to have , you need

9:31

to create a governance model that

9:33

, yes , fits the mandates

9:36

of all the different laws the

9:38

duty of care , the duty of obligation , the duty

9:40

of you know

9:42

fulfilling what you're supposed to do . But

9:45

after that create the structure

9:48

that makes the most sense for your organization

9:51

and in the book I talk about what

9:53

the research says is most important

9:55

and then also provide a scorecard

9:58

of how do you know whether or not you're actually being

10:00

successful .

10:01

I love that , and the thing I've discovered

10:03

about so many boards I've served on is you're

10:05

right , the structure is very important

10:08

, especially to fit your particular organization

10:10

. We love to find

10:12

a generic constitution and

10:15

board policies and just adapt and just change

10:17

the name on it , and then we wonder why

10:19

it doesn't work .

10:22

Yes , no , absolutely , absolutely . And

10:25

you know , what's interesting to me , too , is if

10:27

Peter Drucker actually talks about

10:29

how there's one thing that all boards have in common they

10:31

do not function . And he's talking

10:33

about for-profit boards , he's talking about nonprofit boards

10:36

. I think John Carver

10:38

talks about how boards tend to be an

10:40

incompetent group of competent people , and

10:43

so there is this frustration , and

10:45

what I've also found is it's

10:47

actually gotten maybe magnified

10:50

in the past five years Now . Covid helped

10:52

speed this process up , but it actually began

10:55

prior to COVID , where , whether

10:58

you're a congregation , whether you're a nonprofit

11:00

organization , the world has gotten

11:02

just so much more complex , and

11:05

it's requiring a different board , it's requiring

11:07

a different governance structure , and so I

11:09

think gone are the days where you can

11:11

assemble 12 well-meaning people to

11:13

serve on your board of directors , but you really

11:16

need to take a step back and say

11:18

, all right , what are the skill sets

11:20

that I need on this board ? What are the different

11:22

generations that I might need on this board ? What

11:24

type of diversity makes most sense for

11:26

our organization ? And

11:29

with the increasing challenges

11:31

of technology , of maybe a

11:33

lack of less

11:35

donations coming in , with

11:37

increased competition , with

11:40

the difficulty in retaining and recruiting staff

11:42

, it's more important than ever

11:44

to not only find the right board

11:46

members , but then to create that

11:48

structure and the culture where you're

11:51

looking forward at least a half of the time

11:53

to talk about the future , to talk about the

11:55

strategy , to talk about what are maybe the elephants

11:57

in the room .

11:59

Knowing my research , I went

12:01

in with a hypothesis of what

12:03

I thought I was going to find , to

12:05

only find that there were some surprises

12:07

. So what was probably the greatest surprise

12:10

you discovered in your research ? That

12:12

was like an aha moment for you .

12:16

Yeah , you know , I think , Keith , there are a couple of them . One

12:19

is I intently

12:21

wrote this book

12:24

for non-profit organizations . So

12:26

private university schools , your

12:28

typical non-profit organization . What

12:31

I found after the fact is

12:33

how this is also so

12:35

relatable and works

12:38

for congregations as well . The

12:41

governance issues in congregations are

12:43

, in many ways , no difference than

12:46

the governance challenges and opportunities

12:48

in non-profit organizations and universities

12:50

. Congregations are increasingly becoming a

12:53

pretty complex organization , especially

12:55

those that maybe have a school attached

12:57

to it or a preschool , and

13:00

so after the fact , I realized

13:02

that what makes sense for non-profit

13:04

organizations actually also makes

13:06

complete sense for churches as well

13:09

, and so I'm starting to expand

13:11

that message , because what I'm finding is

13:13

that congregations are

13:15

struggling and looking for resources

13:18

as well , because they want to

13:20

do the governance piece right , but

13:22

they don't necessarily always quite know how

13:24

to do it . The other thing

13:26

I found is that almost

13:28

every organization , no

13:31

matter if those that are doing well or those might be

13:33

struggling , has , in many ways

13:35

, what I call their own elephant in the room

13:37

. It may be

13:39

increased competition . It may be , if you're a school

13:42

, a charter school that's opened down the street . If

13:44

you're a congregation , it may be changing

13:46

demographics within your neighborhood . If

13:49

you're a university , it may be

13:51

different competition among your

13:53

peers , but

13:55

what surprised

13:57

me is oftentimes the unwillingness

14:00

to at least even

14:02

identify the elephant and

14:04

then have the courage

14:06

to wrestle with whatever that elephant

14:09

is , in that trust-filled , blame-free

14:11

environment where you're all sitting around

14:13

the table leadership and board members as

14:16

partners to figure

14:18

out how do we get past that ?

14:20

That's a good observation , because I've worked with a lot with

14:22

congregations and I've seen several

14:25

different governance issues . One

14:27

of my favorite is the Constitution

14:29

was written in 1872 and

14:31

we haven't changed it since and

14:34

we can't figure out why it's not working . It

14:36

was designed for a church that had 40

14:39

people on the boards and committees

14:41

and we're down to church of 40

14:43

and we can't make the governance system work .

14:47

Yes , yes

14:49

, here's what's

14:51

interesting , keith I started

14:53

talking about . The challenges tend

14:55

to be in two different buckets One is plumbing

14:57

and the other is what I call people being

15:00

. A great example is what you just brought up , where

15:02

your bylaws or your articles or your Constitution

15:05

may have made sense for 30

15:07

, 40 years ago or 100 years ago , but

15:09

they no longer make sense today . To

15:11

me , that's a plumbing issue . Or if you

15:13

have a board meeting and your board

15:16

agenda is always looking backwards , you're

15:18

reviewing your financial statements , you're

15:20

talking about your successes in the past

15:23

quarter or past year , but you're not looking

15:25

forward . To me , that's a plumbing issue

15:27

. There's also what I would call a people

15:29

issue , and one example of that would be do

15:31

you have the right people sitting around the table

15:33

? For example , I worked

15:35

with a congregation here in Texas

15:38

and what

15:40

the new pastor did is

15:42

what ? He came to the church . He found that every

15:45

member of the board was a third or

15:47

fourth generation family member

15:49

of that congregation . What

15:52

he also found was that the needs of the

15:54

long-term members of the congregation

15:56

are often completely different than a

15:59

member who just joined , maybe a couple of years

16:01

ago . He created

16:03

a little bit of excitement by

17:00

adding people who hadn't been with the

17:02

church for more than a generation . But

17:05

from his perspective he really had

17:07

to have that perspective

17:09

sitting around the table to really understand

17:12

what his parishioners need

17:14

from him and the church to

17:16

fulfill their needs .

17:17

I love that . I've also

17:20

seen where people have changed

17:22

governance to give more control

17:25

to the pastor and less control to the people

17:27

. I've walked in congregations

17:29

where they were used to having

17:31

input and all of a sudden , maybe going to move into

17:33

a policy-based governance system , has now

17:35

, I would say , disenfranchised

17:38

the members . There's grumbling because

17:40

there's a lack of communication . I've

17:42

done several self-studies

17:45

where the same issue kept coming up

17:47

. The same people make all

17:49

the decisions in the church and we're not included . What

17:54

do you do when it's a situation where you run into

17:56

that ?

17:58

Yes , it's

18:01

really interesting , keith , because sometimes a pastor

18:03

doesn't want to be in charge . Sometimes

18:05

the pastor comes in and says , yes , I need to be

18:08

the quote CEO of this congregation . From

18:10

a governance perspective , I

18:12

think the initial conversation

18:14

that has to occur is

18:16

what is the most appropriate

18:18

model for one this congregation

18:21

but also two , for the talents , the

18:23

skill sets and the desires

18:25

of the pastor . It

18:28

takes that trust-filled room

18:31

and conversation to occur . David

18:36

Peter from the St Louis Seminary has written

18:38

an outstanding book on the different models

18:40

of governance for congregations

18:43

. I think the first

18:45

step is to figure out what the right model is . The

18:48

second step is all right . What's so

18:50

unique about our congregation ? Let's

18:52

have this honest conversation about how

18:55

should we adapt our governance

18:58

model to fit the new needs

19:00

of this congregation . Also

19:03

, I would strongly encourage every congregation

19:06

to embark on a conversation about

19:08

getting that clarity of

19:10

strategy what

19:12

is your role , what is the mission of our congregation

19:15

? It may be shepherding , it may be evangelizing

19:17

, it may be both , it may be also school

19:20

, but really having that clarity , also

19:23

understanding that the world is

19:25

changing so fast that you're probably

19:27

not going to be able to plan more than several years out

19:29

. But whether the two or three things you really

19:31

want to accomplish in those next three years . And

19:34

then , what is that one thing you need to accomplish

19:36

and want to accomplish in the next 12 months

19:38

to keep that momentum going ? Because

19:42

I tell congregations , I tell nonprofit organizations

19:44

, from a messaging and a marketing

19:47

perspective , you're not necessarily

19:49

competing against other churches , you're

19:51

competing for the time and interest

19:54

of your parishioners , against the Nikes

19:56

and the McDonald's and

19:58

the Amazons of the world . Your

20:01

message is better be as clear

20:03

as that in terms of who you are and

20:05

what you're about and what you want to accomplish

20:07

as a congregation Love that . And

20:09

as a nonprofit organization or a university

20:11

.

20:12

One thing I know a lot of organizations struggle with , especially

20:15

churches , is what I call mission

20:17

drift . And

20:19

how do you set your structure up ? And one

20:21

of the things you talk about in your bio was

20:23

how you helped organizations

20:26

rediscover their mission . And

20:29

I think so often structure can

20:31

hinder our mission focus , can

20:33

make us go mission to drift . Because we focus so much

20:35

on the structure , on the things you

20:37

talked about before , we talk about the past . We

20:39

keep going rehashing things that haven't worked

20:42

before we're frustrated . So

20:44

how do you avoid the mission

20:46

drift and have the structure of the organization

20:48

drive mission versus

20:51

let mission drift away ?

20:55

Yeah , that's a great question and

20:57

I'll use an example of how

21:00

. At one point I probably had

21:02

gotten it wrong , but then we

21:04

in some ways

21:06

we took a hard

21:08

look at what our organization is to get

21:10

it right . So , as CEO of Lutheran Social

21:12

Services of the South , we had a mission that said

21:15

we will provide help , healing and hope

21:17

to the children , the elderly and the poor in the

21:19

name of Jesus Christ , and it was a great

21:21

message . We had elderly services , we

21:23

had children's services , we had services

21:26

for the poor , food pantries , et

21:28

cetera . But the problem with

21:30

that broad of a mission is one

21:32

it was really difficult

21:35

for us to say no and we got

21:37

spread too thin and we realized we couldn't

21:39

be all things to all people . So I actually

21:41

had a mid-level millennial

21:43

staff person come to my office one

21:45

day and said can I talk to you ? I said

21:47

absolutely . And so he came in and he says you know what

21:50

I don't like our mission . And

21:52

I said why ? He says it doesn't mean anything to me

21:54

and I said well , what do you want to do ? And

21:57

he says what I really want to do , because we're so

21:59

good in children's services , is to break the cycle

22:01

of child abuse . I'm tired of seeing children being

22:03

abused , and so we thought

22:05

, wow , I thought this is really interesting

22:07

conversation we're having , and so I

22:10

shared this with our other members of our leadership

22:12

team and we then shared

22:14

that conversation with our board of directors

22:16

and what we found is

22:18

that , yes , we're really good at providing

22:21

children's services . We're getting tired

22:23

of always serving those who've been abused

22:25

. How do we actually stop the abuse ? We

22:28

made some hard . The

22:31

elephant in the room was that we didn't have enough

22:33

resources to continue to provide

22:36

retirement communities with the

22:38

competition in the for-profit world . So

22:40

, as a result of a number of strategic

22:42

conversations , it allowed us to make

22:44

some really difficult decisions to

22:47

sell retirement communities to

22:49

other good providers so that the mission continues

22:51

but we no longer have the debt . It

22:53

allowed us to change our brand to

22:55

upbringing , because in Texas , I think

22:57

, only 2% of the population are Lutheran

23:00

, and if we truly wanted to break the cycle

23:02

of child abuse , we needed to invite everybody

23:04

to join us in this mission . It

23:06

also allowed us to create an advocacy program

23:08

. It also allowed us to create a

23:11

research partnership

23:13

with several universities , including the University

23:15

of Texas , and we

23:18

also took a deep dive into the research

23:20

and if you really want to break the cycle of child abuse

23:22

, not only do you have to have good social service

23:24

programs , you have to have good educational programs

23:26

, and so it allowed us the opportunity

23:29

to create charter schools , faith-based schools

23:31

, head Start programs

23:33

, understanding that we needed to

23:35

meld and combine both social

23:37

service programs and educational

23:40

programs in order to really make

23:42

a dent in the child abuse . None

23:45

of that could have happened if we hadn't

23:47

had these hard , honest conversations

23:49

about what are we really good at

23:51

, what can be best

23:54

, how can we best serve the communities in which

23:56

we serve , and what

23:59

is our unique niche and what do

24:01

we need to give up in order to do

24:04

that . It was a long

24:06

journey , but it was also a

24:08

worthwhile journey , and we

24:10

were able to do this because we had complete

24:13

trust in the room , understanding

24:15

that the only thing we wanted to do was to

24:17

be more impactful

24:19

in our organization .

24:21

I love that your book has questions

24:23

for organizations to kind of go through and ask themselves

24:25

kind of in a setting of discovering

24:28

some of those competitive advantages

24:30

or your blind spots . So if you

24:32

were trying to work with an organization that was

24:34

dealing with some of those blind

24:36

spots you just mentioned , what

24:38

are some good questions that they could

24:40

ask themselves about Just what you

24:42

talked about , how do we get back to what our

24:45

strength is ? Our mission is that

24:48

we are better than anybody else at yeah

24:50

, yeah .

24:52

And what's interesting , Keith , is that from

24:56

my perspective , in my experience , it's

24:58

really difficult for boards

25:00

and leadership teams to confront the blind

25:02

spots , and I think partly because you're

25:05

doing this day in and day out and sometimes

25:07

you don't actually take , you don't actually realize what

25:09

your blind spots are . And so what

25:11

I've recommended is that it can

25:13

be as simple as let's start with

25:15

talking about what are our strengths , what are

25:18

our weaknesses , what are our opportunities , what are

25:20

our threats , and it

25:23

allows then maybe even bringing in a facilitator

25:25

so the leadership can

25:28

be full participants to

25:30

then highlight

25:32

what may be their blind

25:34

spots that

25:37

need to be addressed

25:39

. So , for example , I was sitting in on a

25:42

two-day board meeting as a facilitator

25:45

observer , and it was clear

25:47

that they had really challenging

25:49

financial situation , and what

25:51

was fascinating to me is the first seven hours of

25:53

their board meeting nobody brought that up , and

25:56

finally I couldn't stand anymore . So I

25:58

brought it up in a nice way and said you know , I've

26:00

seen your financial statements , I've seen your balance

26:02

sheet . Before we talk about

26:04

all the things we wanna do in the future , let's

26:08

talk about how we're gonna wrestle with our

26:10

financial situation and what we

26:12

can do strategically maybe

26:14

to improve this over the both the short term and

26:16

the long term . And so

26:19

in some ways it's just as

26:21

much of a willingness to confront

26:23

those

26:26

elephants and to have

26:28

those conversations and to not ignore

26:30

them , because I think so often our congregations

26:32

and our nonprofit organizations tend to

26:34

ignore them because it's not gonna bother

26:37

you in the next year , but it may in the next few years

26:39

.

26:41

Right . So if you're

26:43

a CEO , you listen to this podcast and go and I really

26:45

need to do something . I

26:47

want to read this book . How would you recommend

26:49

a CEO on a board process

26:52

your book if they're going to look at the CEO

26:55

on the board ?

26:55

Yeah , yeah , so I think there

26:57

is value in having

27:00

a common language , and so what's interesting

27:02

about board of directors especially in the nonprofit

27:04

roles and in world and also congregational

27:07

world is that many board

27:09

members come to service

27:11

with absolutely no board experience

27:13

, and so they don't

27:16

know what to do . They're well-meaning people who

27:18

want to do the right things , but they really don't

27:20

know what to do . And so there

27:22

have been other books that have been published that

27:24

you'll spread around and read

27:26

, but oftentimes , as you probably

27:29

know , keith , governance books can be so boring

27:31

it's hard to get through them and you don't quite

27:33

understand what the authors are saying . So

27:35

my whole goal of this was to think

27:37

about that new board member and

27:40

to think about what a CEO or

27:42

the organization leader needs from their board

27:44

, and to create really short chapters

27:46

so that they can read them together and

27:48

to have that common language and

27:51

understand that one size does not fit

27:53

all . And so I'm

27:56

not here to sell books , but I do think that there

27:58

is a benefit to having that common language

28:00

, and so I

28:02

would suggest I would start with that Now

28:05

. It's also there's at the end

28:07

of the book a scorecard that talks

28:09

about how do you know whether

28:11

or not your organization has

28:13

a successful governance model and that

28:15

it is in fact a competitive or missional

28:18

advantage . And so you look about , you

28:20

know , you ask yourselves the questions do

28:22

you have that healthy , trusting relationship

28:24

with the CEO or with the pastor

28:26

? Do you have a pastor or CEO

28:28

who's comfortable sharing everything with the board

28:31

and vice versa ? Do you

28:33

have this shared focus of looking

28:35

strategically into the future during

28:37

your meeting time and do you have that

28:39

clarity of mission where you

28:41

understand what your mission is and

28:43

also what are the two or three things you need to accomplish

28:46

in the next few years in order to succeed

28:48

that in that mission ? I also the

28:50

research is also very clear

28:52

that proactive succession planning

28:55

is very important . It's

28:57

a little bit hard in a congregation , but that

28:59

doesn't mean you can't talk about it and to start preparing

29:02

and to have those conversations . I

29:06

think that's really important and you

29:08

know , at the end of the day

29:10

, does the pastor , does the leader feel

29:12

supported by the board and does the board feel

29:14

supported by the leader ? If you answer

29:16

all of those questions in the positive , you're

29:19

off to a pretty good start and

29:22

you're in the right direction . And then you

29:24

know you talk about all right . Every

29:26

organization has that elephant in the room . What's ours

29:29

? What can we do better ? What do we

29:31

need to change ? How is the external

29:33

environment changing our

29:35

internal world ? And to

29:37

have those forward-looking conversations

29:40

on a quarterly , on a regular basis , as

29:42

opposed to maybe once every couple of years .

29:46

What I love about the succession conversation

29:49

is I've been on boards where it's

29:51

on the agenda , where he

29:53

says we need to talk about succession and that's where it

29:55

ends . You know , we

29:57

just say in the future we should talk about

29:59

this , but we never actually talk about it as a

30:01

board . So I was like , well , are we

30:03

gonna cover it at some point ?

30:06

Well and the best practice that I've seen a board

30:09

that I served on . We had hired

30:11

a new CEO and absolutely loved her . She

30:13

was a great CEO , but what

30:15

we told her is we're gonna have this conversation

30:18

about succession planning from the very first

30:20

month you are part of

30:22

the organization because we don't

30:24

want you to be afraid that you know five

30:26

years and now , when we bring it up all of a sudden we

30:28

want you to leave . We don't want you to leave

30:31

, but you may get hit by a bus

30:33

. You may get an offer you can't refuse

30:35

. We as a board have an obligation

30:37

to do this , and I think congregations

30:39

have that exact same obligation

30:41

as well .

30:45

So let's stick there a little bit . So how do you

30:47

bring up that conversation ? How

30:49

do you prepare a succession

30:51

plan ? Because , like I said , I've heard us talk

30:53

about it on boards I've served on and

30:56

I'll hear the CEO's like well , you know , I'm in good health

30:58

, I don't plan on retiring anytime soon , so we'll

31:00

address that down the road . So we

31:03

never get to it because we

31:05

keep pretending that it's never going to happen

31:07

. So how do you ? What's

31:10

some best practices for how you do

31:12

something other than just talk about it ?

31:14

Yeah . So I think one best practice

31:16

would be and this may not make

31:18

sense for the smallest of organizations , but for

31:20

every other organization in church it does is

31:22

I think we have an obligation for those

31:25

, the leadership underneath the pastor

31:27

or underneath the CEO , to continue

31:29

to train them and to continue to develop

31:31

their skill sets , and part of succession

31:34

planning is to continue to develop skill

31:36

sets at every level of the organization

31:38

, even if that individual may not ever

31:41

want to be a pastor or a CEO

31:43

. And so I think that's one piece of the puzzle

31:45

. The other piece of the puzzle is yeah , we know

31:47

you don't think you're going to leave in five

31:49

years , but things happen

31:52

, and so we need to be prepared and we

31:54

need to have at a minimum that name

31:56

in the envelope if you are to suddenly

31:59

get sick and unable to serve , or who

32:01

temporarily can take your place , and

32:04

who are people we might want to look at

32:06

to recruit

32:08

that might be a good fit going

32:11

forward . It's obviously never

32:13

the leaders' sole decision , but

32:15

oftentimes they're in a position where they have

32:17

more names and more understanding

32:20

of who might be a good replacement than others

32:22

, and so I

32:24

would begin with that conversation , and

32:27

it also then , can lead to conversations

32:30

about what are we doing

32:32

right as a board ? How can we better serve

32:35

you as a leader ? Do

32:37

we need to have a conversation about maybe taking

32:39

a sabbatical to help you in terms

32:41

of your renewal process ? How

32:45

can we best support each other and I

32:47

think that's part of the succession planning conversation

32:49

as well .

32:50

Because I've seen a lot of large

32:52

organizations that did not do

32:54

that . I've seen large churches

32:57

where the spounding

32:59

pastor stepped down and

33:01

the succession didn't work and you went

33:03

through it three others before they found

33:05

the next person , because that did

33:07

not go well and it

33:09

was not planned properly .

33:15

And it's one of the most important things you

33:17

can do . So as CEO

33:20

. One way to judge , I think

33:22

, my success is are

33:24

they performing even better after

33:27

I left than when I was there ? Right

33:29

, and so I think as a leader , as

33:31

a board , you actually

33:33

have that obligation to ensure

33:36

that you're going to have good people

33:38

to replace you when that time

33:40

does come for you to leave Now . It doesn't always

33:42

work , but I've also seen

33:44

. You know , my old home

33:46

congregation in St Louis Webster Gardens did

33:48

an outstanding job of transitioning

33:51

from a retiring pastor to their

33:53

associate pastor to senior , and everybody

33:55

was on board . I worked with a congregation

33:57

in Texas . They did the exact same thing . There

33:59

are ways to do it . It's

34:02

not always easy , especially in

34:04

the congregational world , but

34:06

what drives me crazy is so

34:08

, kate , I was working with a non-private

34:10

organization at head over a thousand employees

34:12

and the CEO was convinced that

34:14

there was not one person in that organization who

34:17

could ultimately replace him . Now

34:20

, if there's not one in those a thousand people

34:22

, you're probably hiring the wrong

34:24

people or you're not training them

34:27

right and develop them as skill users . There's got to

34:29

be one .

34:30

So , kurt , this is a fascinating conversation . I

34:32

could dive into every part of your book . But

34:35

what are you most

34:37

excited about today , as you look at

34:40

the landscape of the non-profit world

34:42

and kind of with the response you're getting from your book

34:44

, what are you most excited about ?

34:49

Well , yeah , it's

34:51

a great question . So , on a personal

34:53

level , what I'm excited about is this

34:56

ability to help

34:58

organizations

35:00

enhance their governance

35:02

practice and to help them

35:04

understand that there is a direct tie

35:06

between governance and strategy and

35:09

strategy and success , and

35:11

so if their goal is to have

35:13

a missional impact within their community

35:15

, it needs to really start at the governance

35:18

level , and then we can quickly move to strategy

35:20

and then we can quickly measure success and

35:23

impact on community . To me , this

35:25

has been really rewarding

35:29

in that one of the

35:31

goals that I made a

35:33

year and a half ago , when this book was about to

35:35

come out , is how

35:38

are we going to measure success with respect

35:40

to this

35:42

research ? And the goal in my

35:44

mind was to have an impact

35:47

, either directly or indirectly , on a thousand

35:49

organizations , and so it's a

35:51

little bit difficult to measure , but we're measuring it , and

35:53

so we're tracking who's using

35:55

the book as a board . We're tracking who its

35:58

congregations are using it . We're tracking how many

36:00

people ask us to come and to speak

36:02

to their boards of directors , and the

36:04

neat thing is , after about 15 months , we're at about

36:06

600 . And so it

36:08

feels like we're making an impact

36:11

in the area in which we think

36:13

that I think I have an expertise

36:15

in , and so that's what excites

36:17

me , that's what gets me up in the morning , that's what

36:19

big conversations with people

36:21

like you so much fun , because we're

36:23

spreading that word , that this matters

36:26

, because I think the downside

36:28

to governance is you

36:30

can get by with bad governance in

36:33

the short term and it's probably not

36:35

going to hurt much , but in

36:37

the long term the research shows it will

36:39

, and so it's getting that recognition

36:41

among the CEOs and the pastors and the leadership

36:44

team and the boards that this really does

36:46

matter if you're intent on having

36:48

long term succession , mission or success . I

36:51

love that .

36:52

So , Kurt , I love that . I guess this question what

36:55

do you want your legacy to be ?

36:59

You know part of me . Keith doesn't like

37:01

that question because it

37:03

makes it about me , right .

37:05

And I don't like that .

37:07

But so if I were to die

37:09

tomorrow , what I would hope people

37:11

were to say is that

37:15

we trusted him , that

37:17

he had integrity , that

37:19

he was a good father , that he was

37:22

a good husband and that

37:24

the organizations that he , either

37:26

you know , had a full-time or a part-time

37:28

role with are stronger

37:31

today , as a result of his involvement

37:33

, than they would have been without him . I

37:36

think that would be what

37:38

I would hope people would say about me when

37:41

I'm gone .

37:44

I like that Something

37:46

. I haven't asked you that I should have asked you .

37:49

Wow , you

37:57

know what I see . Yes

38:00

, one of the things that I didn't talk

38:03

about , in terms of what the research says , that is so

38:05

important in boards of directors of any organization

38:07

, of any congregation , is , in

38:10

addition to having appropriate

38:12

diversity for your own organization

38:14

and congregation , and that's going to mean different

38:16

things to different people right In

38:18

your own church . You're going to have members

38:21

of your church and that's going to limit , maybe

38:23

, your diversity . However , you

38:26

can still have diversity in terms of generation

38:28

. You can still have diversity in terms of various different

38:31

skill sets , et cetera . What

38:33

the research is more and more clear about

38:35

whether you're talking about a board member or

38:37

about a leader or about a pastor

38:39

is just as important , if

38:41

not more important than skill sets is

38:44

emotional intelligence , emotional maturity

38:46

. The question becomes

38:48

when you're recruiting board members , when you're

38:50

recruiting that next pastor , that next leader

38:52

is how are you going to determine

38:55

whether or not this individual has an emotional

38:57

intelligence , emotional maturity that

38:59

is so important today in terms of leadership

39:02

? It's something that I think we

39:04

haven't quite realized , but

39:06

the corn fairies of Spencer Stewart's

39:08

, the big search firms for executives these

39:10

days , are saying that this is actually

39:12

more important than any skill set or experience or

39:14

wherever you went to colleges . This is

39:16

what you have to look and test . To

39:19

do that , you may want to take them out to dinner

39:21

or to lunch to see them in various different settings

39:24

, to ask about maybe their experience

39:26

in other boards , because

39:28

I've seen one or two board

39:30

members poison an entire board

39:33

. One or two leaders poison an

39:35

entire organization . It's

39:37

not because they didn't have the skills , it's because they just

39:39

didn't have that emotional intelligence .

39:42

That's a good point . I've seen that too . It's

39:46

hard to correct a bad hire . It's

39:49

also hard to correct the

39:51

wrong appointment or approval of a board

39:53

member .

39:54

Yes , absolutely , absolutely

39:56

. What's interesting to me is almost all

39:58

of us think we have emotional intelligence , but

40:01

the research actually shows that only about 35%

40:04

of us do . It really

40:06

is important to flesh that out

40:08

.

40:09

Yeah , definitely , Kurt

40:12

. Where can people find your book the CEO

40:14

on the board , the art of nonprofit governance

40:16

as a competitive advantage , and

40:18

connect with you on social media ?

40:20

Yeah , thank you for asking . The book's

40:22

available on amazoncom and cphorg

40:25

. Both

40:27

of those are great places to go Connect

40:31

with me on social media . I do most of my

40:33

professional stuff on LinkedIn , Kurt

40:35

Sensky . Also . If you want to know a little

40:37

bit about my private life and personal

40:39

life , feel free to connect me on

40:41

Facebook as well . Those are the two that

40:43

I primarily use , Facebook or LinkedIn

40:46

.

40:47

Well , kurt . Thanks so much , it was a great conversation

40:50

. Just talking about this

40:52

is such a critical part , because nonprofits

40:54

typically are designed to make an

40:57

impact in the world . When

41:00

they don't function well or the board

41:02

hinders the mission of it , it

41:04

diminishes the impact it can have

41:06

. Whether that's a church or a nonprofit

41:09

, you found it with a mission

41:11

and a goal to make the world a better

41:13

place . Having a governance that

41:16

helps you do that and accomplish that effectively

41:18

is so critical . Thank you

41:20

for taking the time to do the research and to

41:22

write this and share your insights

41:25

with the world .

41:26

Keith , it's my pleasure . That

41:28

is why we exist . Right is to make that

41:30

impact , that mission impact in our communities and

41:34

fulfill our calling . Thank you for having me

41:36

.

41:37

Thank you so much , Kurt . Have a blessed new year .

41:39

Likewise you too , keith . Blessings on your ministry .