My List of Governance Problems

As I've written before, I'm on the the  Governance Task Force, which is charged with
"reviewing the current governance structure (AMC and committees) of American Mensa. The task force shall gather data, identify Mensa’s current governance needs based on the Strategic Plan, review comparable structures, talk to leaders and members at various levels of the organization, and make recommendations for the optimum structures that may make American Mensa more effective, efficient, and responsive as an organization."

Seems pretty clear directive on what to do .... but not what to accomplish.

Interestingly, we're now getting bogged down trying to identify what exactly are the problems and what are the results the AMC wants.

I have my ear to the ground in many venues, so I'm going to take a stab at laying out what the problems are that we're supposed to help the AMC resolve:

1) Too many members complain about

• The price tag of sending so many AMCers to meetings
• The sense of resentment at having any sort of hierarchy of the directors who make decisions (we Mensans hate the notion of any one set of members having "authority" over others)
• The feeling of being excluded from discussions and information that they think they should be entitled to participate in or have access to.
• Some members get to be in positions of "power" without the general membership having the opportunity to put them there (the appointees and the past chairs).

2) We feel stodgy and bogged down in mountains of paper, rules, and time-consuming processes.

3) We do not always end up with directors who have the ideal sets of skills for their positions.


and so, some results the AMC wants are:

1) Less money spent on AMC travel
2) Fewer complaints from members
3) Fewer words to read
4) Quicker reactions to issues
5) Faster and better results on projects

Please note that the above is just my opinion.