CARVER

1
CARVERS POLICYGOVERNANCE MODEL

• Presented at the
• RCOC Board of Directors Meeting
• by Christian F. Dubia
• January 5, 2012

2
Goals

• By the end of the training you will
• Understand policy governance
• Understand the purpose of a Board of Directors
• Know who the Board of Directors represent
• Know who speaks for the Board of Directors
• Understand how the Board of Directors gets its
  job done

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What Is Policy Governance?

• A set of ideas that make up a system that
• Defines the ENDS or goals to be met
• ENDS Goals
• Empowers management to meet those ENDS with some
  rules about the MEANS or ways used to meet them
• MEANS Ways
• Monitors performance of management

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How Do You Make Sure That Policy Governance Is
Successful?

• Decide on the ENDS to be met
• Tell everyone the ENDS to be met
• Make it the Executive Directors (ED) job to meet
  the ENDS
• Monitor the EDs performance to make sure the job
  is getting done and the ENDS are being met

5
Why did RCOC pick the Carver Policy Governance
Model?

• To maximize the likelihood of success of RCOC in
  meeting the goals described in the Lanterman Act.

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What Is the Purpose of a Board of Directors?

• To represent and speak for the interests of the
  owners and to be accountable to such owners for
  whom the organization works.

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Who are the Owners Represented by the RCOC Board
of Directors?

• The owners are the entire community of Orange
  County and the citizens of the State of
  California
• The board must understand and speak for the many
  views held by the entire community not just one
  particular group

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The Boards Purpose Is Not To

• Be a part of staff
• Say okay to anything that management wants
• Closely watch over everything that management
  does
• Get special things or be treated differently
  because you are a board member

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The Owners the Board of Directors Represents
Are Not

• Individual Staff
• Individual Management
• Individual Consumers
• Individual Board Members
• Individual Vendors

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Who Speaks for the Board of Directors?

• The One Voice principle
• The board as a group, and only as a group, speaks
  for the board
• The board can only speak when it passes an
  official motion at a board meeting
• Board decisions can only be changed by the board,
  not by individual board members

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More About Who Can Speak For The Board

• Individual board members cannot speak for the
  board
• Individual board members have no authority
• Once the board has made a decision, all board
  members must respect it even if they did not
  agree with the decision because
• the board speaks with ONE VOICE

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How Does the Board Get Its Job Done?

• The board has total power and responsibility for
  getting its job done
• The board works for the owners the citizens
  of Orange County and the State of California
• The board knows its getting its job done when
  the agency is successfully meeting its goals
• BUT, the board has to depend on management to do
  the work of the organization

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More About How the Board Gets Its Job Done

• The Carver Model talks about systematic
  delegation
• That means the board gives the ED the power
  and responsibility to get the job done for them
• To help the ED be successful the board has to
• Be clear about what it expects
• Directly tell the ED what is expected
• Check to see whether its getting what it expects
  to get

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Even More About How the Board Gets Its Job Done

• The board sets policies that define the ENDS
• The MEANS used to meet the ENDS is not important
  to the board as long as some general rules are
  followed
• Those general rules are written in the Executive
  Limitations policies.
• Under the Carver Model the boards job is
  not producing ends, but defining them

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Review and Summary

• RCOCs Board of Directors adopted the Carver
  Policy Governance Model 10 years ago to maximize
  the likelihood of success of RCOC in meeting the
  goals described in the Lanterman Act.
• If the ENDS are met by the ED, the boards
  responsibilities to the owners will have been met

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More Review

• RCOCs policies clearly define the ENDS to be met
  by the ED and state some general rules about they
  way the ED can do his job
• The board gives the ED the power and
  responsibility to meet the ENDS defined by the
  board.
• The board evaluates the EDs performance to see
  how successful he is in meeting the ENDS
• RCOCs success or failure falls on the shoulders
  of the ED which is exactly where it should be.

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Ending

• The RCOC Board of Directors
• does its job by defining success
• and making sure the ED is working toward meeting
  goals.
• The board is successful when it is doing what it
  should for the owners
• the people who live in Orange County
• and in the State of California