Saying No to Board Members

Redirect those fly-by board member suggestions & comments.

It’s incredibly common for board members to inadvertently send staff down rabbit holes. And staff, wanting to please their board members, are often quick to add every suggestion to their task lists, even when they aren’t quite a fit.

If the suggestion is gold & fits org values, great – run with it. If it inspires you to think about the work differently, consider it. But know that not every individual board member suggestion should be given the weight of being a board directive. 

It can be tough – especially for a newer executive director – to say no to a board member. But before you waste the precious resources of time and focus in an effort to be responsive to something you know is not a fit, consider if the following responses would serve you: 

• Thank you for the suggestion. That is outside what we have built into the budget.

  
  

• I appreciate the suggestion. The reason we have not pursued this is…

  
  

• That would fall outside the strategies that the board and staff decided to focus on in consensus through strategic planning.

  
  

• Thank you. That area falls within the purview of the X Committee, so you might want to reach out to the Chair about exploring this…

• We don’t have capacity right now since we're focusing on X, Y, Z.

Saying no can be hard, but without no in the dialogue, you easily fall prey to having one or two more vocal members having outsized authority over the entire organization. 

Saying no allows for saying yes; in this case, yes to staff empowerment and a more inclusive organizational vision.