61. Do we Need to Force Board Turnover to Achieve Board Diversity?

What this episode covers

SCRIPT: Whether they’d admit it or not, the hardest part about board diversity for a lot of organizations is the fact that for every new person who comes ON to the board, somebody has to leave. And nobody wants to just leave – what if they haven’t been on the board for very long and have a specialized and useful skillset, and are still really effective? Well, the first thing boards and directors need to accept is that the only question that REALLY matters is this: “how can we make sure that this board is able to make the best possible decisions in the interests of the organization and its stakeholders?” So, yeah, sometimes it might make sense for an effective director to leave just to make space for another effective director who also increases board diversity. When you say it out loud, it doesn’t seem so hard – because it isn’t. But let’s be real here, most boards can just, y’know, have as many directors as they want, within reason. Even by-laws can be modified if need be. Is it really so bad to increase the size of the board – even temporarily – JUST TO INCREASE BOARD DIVERSITY? Yes, of course, diversity needs a parallel commitment to inclusion if it’s going to actually be the superpower it should be, but what I’m saying is this: IF BOARD SIZE AND SLOW RENEWAL ARE YOUR ONLY BARRIERS TO DIVERSITY, maybe you don’t have a problem at all…