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Smaller housing associations conference 3 November 2011 Radojka Miljevic Leadership and control
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...
