Indigenous organisations, especially Native Title Prescribed Body Corporates and claim groups need a vision statement.
This statement should serve as the sign-post to point all activity towards the greater outcome of the group, whatever that may be. It should provide a clear and succinct direction about the purpose for which the group came together and the aspirations they are working to achieve.
This statement should also point to the way benefits are prioritised to avoid day to day arguments about who receives benefits or why some activities are funded and others are not. A clear vision statement becomes the guide for Boards and funds trustees about the allocation of priorities.
Yet, many PBC’s and other organisations have vision statements – why isn’t this helping clarify priorities like it should?
Let’s face it; many existing vision statements do not clearly point the way. They are word-smithed in long workshops that make every participant tired, they are often facilitated by “management consultants” who
cannot bring the theory into the world of Aboriginal dynamics, and they often leave behind the communities that these statements are meant to represent. What you end up with is something so generic that it is meaningless, or even if the expression is good,...
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I'm about to insult lawyers.
The rest of you - you needn't cheer quite so raucously. I only choose to use lawyers as an example of a highly trained group of professionals, skilled and experienced in what they do and good at their multi-faceted jobs, but because of that, think that they can self-handle other aspects of their business where different specialist skills and experience are required.
I could have chosen accountants, or doctors, or engineers (there, some of you are not so comfortable now are you?).
One of my clients is a firm of commercial lawyers specialising in insolvency. In their business they run the constant risk that their clients cannot pay. To give them their due they always perform at their best and never stint on service, despite this possibility, but now and then, they get caught.
In one such instance they worked for an owner of advertising billboards scattered around the suburbs. Having satisfactorily won the case for their client they found that the client is cash strapped and unable to pay them, asking for a payment plan over a year or so. Clearly not a good situation. The senior partner, true...
There has been significant attention paid
to governance in the last few years, as more and more Native Title Prescribed
Body Corporates are incorporated, and the tide has turned from welfare-based
Government funded Australian Indigenous organisations towards well-run Not for
Profit entities and social ventures seeking the philanthropic dollar.
This is only right because governance
underpins the development of modern Aboriginal corporations as these seek to
make a sustainable and resilient existence in the “mainstreaming” of their
services.
In my work where I advise, guide, help plan
and facilitate the business of Indigenous Boards, I have seen this attention on
governance leading to a trend to appoint “Independent Directors” to the Boards
of PBC’s and Australian Indigenous NFP’s. The question however is whether the
emphasis on governance equates to a need to appoint Independent Directors, and
what should be the criteria used to select them?
Firstly we should define the term. In
actual fact, all Non-Executive Directors (those Directors who are not employed
by their corporations in an operational or executive capacity) are
“independent”. That is, they are “independent” of management. Indeed the legal
fiduciary duty of all Directors, including Executive Directors, includes the
duty to act for the good of the company, and not for any group, family or
interest they represent,...
