Smaller housing

associations conference

3 November 2011

Radojka Miljevic

Leadership and control

A new world with new

challenges

● Long term change – bubble burst

● Continuing uncertainties in the Eurozone

● Squeezed middle, poor getting poorer

fastest – your role in this?

● Civil unrest – 26% juveniles

● Pressure on all businesses

● Money less available and harder to attain

Is the comfort zone still here?

● Affordable rent, yes.... But surpluses

● Localism Bill nearly here

● Universal Credit yet to hit

● Impact of cuts just starting to be felt

● Unemployment – 1m young people

● Changes to regulation

● Coalition still finding its housing policy feet

You’re still fat cats...

The work of the Board

● Governance – leadership, direction, control,

accountability

● How an organisation fulfils its purpose

● Surely no doubts about tenets of good

governance? Roles, responsibilities, framework

etc.

● But what’s great governance?

● Don’t want only to dutifully wade through papers,

but to contribute…? Don’t settle for mediocrity

Starting to unpick great

governance

● Can you lead without understanding the issues?

● Can you lead without understanding the business?

● Can you lead without informed debate?

● Can you lead without challenge?

● Can you lead without ‘courageous conversations’?

● Can you lead through Board meetings alone?

● Is the Chair good at what s/he does?

Running the business

● Purpose and vision

● Finance

● Asset management –

shot up the priority list

● Customer service

● Risk

● Audit

● How do you know things

are being done

properly?

You as a Board member

● Legal and regulatory responsibilities – take those as

read – ditto with your responsibilities as a landlord

● Personal responsibility – no passengers

● Do the great and the good show up?

● Making time for appraisal and learning (why do we

tolerate exemptions?)

● So little focus in Boards on behaviours

● What are you doing outside and between meetings?

● The ‘professionalisation’ of the non-Exec role in

housing

What is often under-estimated...

• Creating a space of connection where you

all feel valued

• Magic glue that binds – informal spaces

• Self-reflection and analysis – how you

want to lead, behaviours

• Getting away from the Board table

• Distributing leadership (‘bi-laterals’)

Leadership...

• Implies movement and change – do you know

where you’re going?

• Deliberately intentioned to a destination

• On a Board – group process

o The ends and values

o Collaboration – need to be serious about team-working

o Difference and disagreement

o Division of labour

o Learning environment

Working with staff

• Partnership - how many Boards have

effective appraisal mechanisms in

place for the CE and Exec?

• Investment in staff L&D and service

delivery performance

• Organisational culture and values

(Golden Thread)

• Challenge

o It’s not just about point-scoring and nit-picking

o Are we thinking about this in the right way?

• Organisational culture and values (Golden Thread)

• Equality and diversity – complacency and renewal

On board the bus

• 4 pillars of employee

engagement

o Leadership

o Engaging

managers

o Employee voice

o Organisational

integrity

Working with residents

• The shift from constituencies to competencies

• Scrutiny – a change in the structure of

accountability – representativeness remains a

challenge – what’s it for?

• The myopic disconnect at Board level – how

do you make it real? KPIs tell one narrative

• Structural inequality, confidence and

empowerment

• How are you building capacity?

Looking outwards

• Stakeholder relationships

• Other Boards and Chairs

• Getting beyond KPIs

• Being connected likely to

correlate with improvement

• What are you doing to find

out if you’re any good?

Moving through the new landscape ......

What we’ve learned...

• Great organisations develop and learn in the

direction of their questions – spirit of enquiry

• Work always towards competencies – even when

you have constituencies

• The non-Board-meeting meetings

• Leadership - knowledge, influence and the

stewardship of change – if the Board isn’t driving

change, it’s probably not leading…

• Debate and rally everyone behind the vision

Campbell Tickell and NHF plug!

And now some questions for you...

radojka@campbelltickell.com