Comfort – Stretch - Panic

A new trustee says something in a charity board meeting that you fundamentally disagree with.

You prepare challenge it. Your heart rate goes up. You find yourself saying something aggressive instead of considered. The new trustee feels threatened, gets defensive. Things are said that shouldn't be said in a board meeting.

Whether or not the original comment was as bad as it felt, there's now no route to a good resolution.

This isn't really about "bad behaviour" on boards. It's what happens when people go into panic without realising it.

I use a simple model with trustees to talk about this:

comfort, stretch, panic.

Comfort is safe and easy. Boards with good relationships spend a lot of time here. But a board that's always comfortable probably isn't being as effective as it should be — it's not having the difficult discussions that need to be had.

Panic is fight or flight. Under threat, the body shuts down careful, considered thinking to deal with the immediate danger. That's not useful in a board meeting, where the "threat" is just a hard question or a disagreement. One charity I worked with had a crisis policy whose first instruction to trustees was simply: don't panic.

Stretch is the zone in between. It feels uncomfortable and a bit vulnerable. It's where boards need to spend more time. Scrutinising proposals, challenging assumptions, making calls where there's no obvious right answer: none of that is comfortable, but it's the job.

As a charity chair, if you notice trustees are no longer engaging appropriately, that's often a sign people are in panic, not stretch. A minute of silence, or even a ten-minute coffee break, and then reframing the conversation when you restart, can be enough to bring people back.

Personally, I find it useful, in the moment, to ask myself which zone I'm in. Is this feeling appropriate to what's actually happening? Do I need to push myself into stretch, or maybe step back from panic?

If you are struggling to address “difficult behaviour” on your board or if you just want to review whether your board is delivering as well as it could, get in touch to discuss how I might help.