Author: nickmhs

Even the most organized, responsible, and amiable board needs to document its activities, internal policies, practices, and processes. Some of the documentation is legally required while some is simply helpful to have in guiding the work of the Board and Executive Leadership. Some documents should be kept confidential, while other information can be shared beyond the Board. Some serve as guidelines for decision making while others are part of the record keeping. For a board that takes its fiduciary role seriously, written rules simply are part of necessary risk management. 

Best practice for Board policies is to create a Board Policy Manual.   Within this Policy Manual, there should be information on the duties, authority limits, and principal operating procedures for the Board, Board members and Chief Executive.  These policies should be reviewed for fine-tuning every few years and is an excellent tool for onboarding new Board members.

Board policies generally include sections that relate to the following:

Foundational – documents such as Bylaws, Mission, Vision, Values and any important relationships. 

Governance – includes documents related to job descriptions (Board, Board Chair, etc.), eligibility, powers, duties, conflict of interest, code of conduct, confidentiality, anti-harassment, and Board Committee responsibilities.

Executive Accountability – includes information on operating expectations for Board and Staff, accountability for the Board and Chief Executive, communication expectations, human resources and financial services management, compensation and other issues related to more of the operational functions.

Organizations have unique cultures and structures requiring Board and Executive Leadership discernment on developing a Policy Manual. The initial step is to begin the process of organizing current policies and practices that are already in place, and then adding those policies and processes mentioned above that may not be in existence. 

MHS has sample Board Policy Manuals for consideration.  For more information or support, contact Karen Lehman, karen@mhsonline.org.

MHS presented “CEO Succession Planning: Best Practices and Lessons Learned” on January 25, 2022. The webinar was presented by Karen Lehman, President/CEO of MHS. Karen was joined by J. David Yoder, recently retired CEO of Sunnyside Village and Will Barnhart, Board Chair of Mennonite Services Northwest.

Karen and our panelist shared their experiences of their CEO transitions. As the Board Chair, Will navigated the planned retirement of the long-serving CEO of Mennonite Services Northwest and a new search after their CEO resigned 18 months into their tenure. J. David made has successfully led Sunnyside Village these past 14 years.  He worked with his Board on planning his retirement, and the Board completed the search process with the CEO transition occurring this month.

Will shared that the process for his initial CEO search were much different than the process of finding a new CEO following a short tenure. In the initial CEO search, they were afforded the opportunity of time to not only find the right candidate, but have their outgoing CEO there to work with the board on finding an ideal candidate and help provide a smooth transition. During the short-term search, Will identified the need for an Interim CEO instead of rushing to fill the position. This decision allowed for Mennonite Services Northwest the flexibility to find the right candidate.

J. David’s transition was planned over several years with his Board Chair and lead to a formal announcement roughly 12 months prior to his retirement. J. David found himself spending this time period engaging with staff and residents to help “make-sense” of this transition and easing those who were anxious of the transition. J. David’s biggest advice from his perspective was to help communicate as early as possible to help ease those who are anxious about the transition. Talking through the ‘why” and ‘how’ will go a long way during a time of transition.

Webinars are recorded and provided to all registered individuals. To sign up and register for our webinars, please go to https://mhsonline.org/mhs-events/connect-lead-achieve-webinar-series/.

With continued workforce pressures, there’s been lots of conversation about recruiting and retention.  Organizations are putting significant time and resources into developing strategies in these areas.  This effort is understandable and necessary. But sandwiched in the middle of these two things is the process of screening candidates and making decisions about how to hire. Hiring, and the practices we use to make those decisions, in today’s environment needs as much focus as the others.

Everyone understands the importance of making good decisions around who we bring onto the team.  Having a drawn-out process or being too selective has wide-ranging impacts on the team, as they may struggle to manage extra duties or pick up extra shifts to fill the gaps when a person leaves the organization. Rushing a decision or lowering your standards has a negative impact as well. Hiring someone who doesn’t fit the culture or have the right skills for the position places a different type of pressure on the team. There is also a cost associated with that “bad” hire. While we can debate the true cost, it’s hard to argue the organization is out thousands of dollars for each hire that doesn’t work out.  In talking with hiring managers recently, it is clear many that most feel making bad hires is the bigger current issue, and not being too slow or selective. Which of these two dilemmas is worse? It’s hard to say. Both have their downsides, which raises the stakes on how we manage the hiring process.

As you analyze your hiring processes and practices, it is important to keep in mind that the decisions we make about who to hire typically are impacted by 3 factors. The first is what we learn about a person on paper. This is done through their cover letter, resume, and application. We get a chance to learn about their work background, skills and education and technical training. In most situations this gives us our initial impression of a candidate. 

The second factor is the time we spend with someone in-person. This is done through the interview, tour of the workplace and other informal discussions between HR, hiring managers and other team members. The in-person time helps to inform us whether your first impression was accurate. We get an opportunity to see how they interact with others and articulate why they would be a good fit for the organization and position.

The third factor, and commonly most underutilized, is skill and personality, behavior or thinking-style assessments. If a person is applying for a technical job, a skill assessment can be used to test their knowledge and capabilities, helping you to be sure they can complete the tasks they say that they can do. Assessments that fit into the other category include the Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, DiSC, Profile XT or Step One Survey. Any of these assessments give us a different lens to evaluate a candidate. The findings from these assessments give us a perspective that we can’t get from an application or interview.

Which of these factors is most important? Research suggests that each of them should be weighed equally. The likelihood that we will make a bad decision increases if we are overly swayed by one factor over the others. I think we can all agree there’s been a time when we evaluated a poor hire and realized that we ignored or downplayed a factor that caused us to overlook a red flag.

To learn more about effective hiring practices, join us in February for our webinar. During this session, we will discuss in greater detail the 3 factors in making good hires, provide suggestions for how to improve the hiring process and outcomes, and share more about the assessments that MHS Consulting offers for use in the selection process.

By Larry Miller, MHS Board member & MHS Consulting Board Chair

We are familiar with the 3 great passages in the scripture. They are:

1. The great commission – Matt 28; 19 “ Go and make disciples”
2. The great commandment – Matt 22:37 “ Love the Lord your God”
3. The great requirement – Micah 6:8

⁸ He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

The prophet Micah asks the most crucial question in the midst of injustice and violence in 8^th-century B.C.E. Judean society: “What does God expect of you?”

This is the key question for the people of Israel, who must come before God when the relationship with their God has been broken. This is also a question that we must ask ourselves today as we are invited to consider a life of Justice and Peace. The answer is clear: do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8). As Micah invites his people, so the people of good will everywhere are also inviting others to answer Micah’s question by living a life of peace and reconciliation with God and with our neighbor.

The text presents Micah’s observation of violence and injustice in Judean society. Micah paints a picture of political oppression and economic exploitation by the powerful against the weak and oppressed (6:12), and how they despise justice and distort the right (3:1-3). The structure of the passage, as a result, demonstrates that Micah invites the people of Israel to restore and reconcile the broken relationship with God and with the neighbor.

What does God expect of us?. The two commands in verse 8, doing justice and loving kindness, stand at the center of Israel’s faith-talk. The first command concerns the love of neighbor. The second command concerns the love of God. So Micah’s first two commandments summarize the whole message of the Old Testament and reverberate in the Great Commandment of Jesus in the New Testament (Mark 12:28-31; Matt. 22:37-40).

The third command is to walk humbly. To walk humbly is the opposite of walking proudly or walking self-righteously, including arrogance, self-sufficiency, autonomy, and independence. Walter Bruggemann suggests that the term “walking humbly” is to pay attention to others.[6] In this way, the command to walk humbly is the journey of self-giving, self-sacrificing, and self-emptying. If we walk humbly, then we acknowledge others who will be our companions along the way. If we walk the path humbly acknowledging others, who will be our companion along the way? Micah answers: “With your God.” This companion is not just God’s closeness to us, but it carries along the way God’s saving activities so that one can walk with the God who saves, reconciles, heals, and transforms.

So how does this requirement to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God impact our work at MHS? Our mission is to inspire and strengthen health and human service ministries to fulfill their mission, all anchored in Anabaptist faith values. Our listed values are:

• Justice and dignity for the vulnerable
• Reconciliation, hospitality and service
• Stewardship of God’s gifts
• Ethical business practices
• Care of the spirit

MHS pledges to continually review what God is requiring of us as we acknowledge you, our members, who accompany us on our way.

MHS presented “What Motivates Employees: A Multi-generational Roundtable Discussion” on December 16, 2021. The webinar was presented by Jeremy Kauffman, Managing Director of MHS Consulting. Jeremy was joined by Rose Schrock (Baby Boomer) from Pleasantview, Grace Esquivel (Millennial) from Pleasantview, Devon Reynolds (Millennial) from Tel Hai Retirement Community, and Mindy McLaughlin (Gen X) from Tel Hai Retirement Community.

Jeremy and our panelists shared their insights about what things are most important to them when finding a job, how they interact with individuals from different generations, and identifying with their generational characteristics. Multiple panelists highlighted professional development and learning opportunities as major drivers for staying with their organization. These opportunities allowed panelists to bring more value to their organization and feel more connected to the mission and values.

Our panel also had conversations of their experiences with working with individuals of multiple generations. They all highlighted positive experiences, with Rose providing an experience of being trained with a younger Millennial colleague. She noted that her experience was helpful to understand how her colleagues approach a task / process and she found it overall to be a great experience. Rose noted that it is both equally important to learn from both older and younger generations.

Jeremy presented research from Purdue University that identified characteristics from each generation. While the majority of panelists connected and agreed with their characteristics, Devon noted she identified with more Gen X characteristics. She noted she was an older Millennial and stated she felt like her characteristics were a mix of Gen X and Millennial with a lean towards the Gen X characteristics.

Webinars are recorded and provided to all registered individuals. To sign up and register for our webinars, please go to https://www.mhsonline.org/webinar-series.