Just What Does the Board of Directors Do?

Paula Berger

From the STC President

At election time, Board members tend to get a number of questions about just what the STC Board of Directors does, how it operates, and its relationship to the membership. One thing we have noticed is that many members know very little about associations and boards beyond their STC membership, and that’s quite understandable.

For our Board to be most effective, we would like you to understand just what we do. In the United States alone, there are about 60,000 registered associations, and best practices for associations are well-defined and widely followed. There is a substantial body of knowledge and literature available to us. We are working with Executive Director Susan Burton to adopt these best practices for our own Board.

This issue of News & Notes has several articles about the board in general and also an update on one of the biggest Board initiatives ever, the STC Transformation. Take a look at these articles:

Leaders or Followers?

So, what does the Board do? Do we lead the way? Do we follow the wishes of the members? Where should the Board be focusing its attention?

Best practices for associations indicate that a healthy board should spend 70-80% of its time on external issues important to the membership and 20-30% on internal matters. External issues include managing and marketing perceptions of the technical communication profession, improving how technical communicators are valued and how their compensation is determined; and developing a body of knowledge for the profession. The ideal Board member will have concrete ideas about how to make these better.

Strictly speaking, the Board should not follow the wishes of the individual members. It shouldn't follow anyone – it should lead. Becoming a leadership board is one of the challenges we face. From her perspective with 30 years of association management experience, Susan Burton tells us that our current board functions as a management board – meaning we're too involved with the day-to-day operations of the Society. A leadership board is concerned with strategic goals, and delegates the details of implementing those goals to the STC staff and, in some cases, to committees of volunteers.

The Boards of the Future

It seems that many of the candidates that have been selected by the Nominating Committee over the years have also been unclear about what is expected of them as board members. The Board, the Nominating Committee, and Susan Burton are aware that we need to change that! Incoming Nominating Committee Chair Suzanna Laurent, with outgoing Chair Vici Koster-Lenhardt as an advisor, will be developing a comprehensive program to improve the ability of the Nominating Committee to find appropriate candidates for the Board and to educate the candidates about the requirements of serving on the Board.

The Nominating Committee will begin asking potential candidates about the issues that they think the board should be discussing. They will be looking for candidates who can focus on the external, strategic issues, and not only on our internal issues. It will take time for the STC Board to evolve from a management board to a leadership board. But only then can STC meet its goal of becoming the leaders of our profession.

Paula Berger
STC President
pres@stc.org