Organisational power

 

The powers and duties of directors were the focus of some earlier posts, however these make quite narrow use of the concept of ‘power’ – which has many forms and applications.

My previous post dealt with powers legally (and therefore legitimately) afforded non-profit boards and directors, and made reference to those powers being distinctly different to other expressions of power, such as ‘power over’, ‘power with’ and ‘power within’. The header image above offers definitions for each of these, which may aid your reflection on the distinctions.

Types of Power

French and Raven catalogued the bases of social power in 1959, and while there have been some later variations on this typology, their analysis continues to be widely used today.

The chart below positions legitimate power (the right to exercise control) adjacent to informational power, at the boundary between the major categories of positional and personal power. While coercion often involves the abuse of power, from an organisational perspective, it also accommodates the authority to impose sanctions for non-compliance with policies or procedures. Getting the balance right in your organisation is a key determinant of your culture – and the likelihood that you will be identified as ‘an employer of choice’.

Sources of organisational power

Unpacking the sources of your legitimate organisational power a little further, the following schematic identifies various of the controls or ‘governance systems’ you are employing to achieve your purposes, and to meet performance and conformance obligations. Using this chart as a checklist of your control systems, you might identify some areas in which there are opportunities for improvement.

The power to delegate to committees or individuals is one such area, which many non-profits find tricky. This power is embedded within the ‘Use of organisational structure, rules and regulations’

https://tinyurl.com/25m2x5dx

Elements of organisational policy

 

Policy-making is not a ‘paint-by-numbers‘ process. Being clear about the structural elements of an organisational policy however, helps both policy writers and users to focus their attention on the purposes served and outcomes sought from working within the policy guidance.

This post follows on from my two previous posts on Organisational Policy, and is effectively part 3 in a series. Having offered distinctions between governance policies and operational policies in the first article, the second referred readers to toolkits and templates which could provide them with sets of boilerplate policies, for them to customise according to their needs. (See links below).

Most non-profit policy development is undertaken by committees of volunteers, who rarely have any background in writing documents of this kind. Relatively few associations and charities have policy staff who have been selected for their expertise in policy writing.

I find that non-profit organisations generally welcome guidance on what policies they may need to improve their governance and/or operations, and how to construct and implement these policies and procedures.

A compact and very helpful outline of one policy ‘framework’ is offered by the Australian Indigenous Governance Institute. While intended to aid Indigenous people to “design pathways into the future that maximise their self- determination through effective, legitimate governance”, it references “world-class governance practice” relevant for all non-profit bodies.

Source: https://toolkit.aigi.com.au/

The chart below offers a comparison of four examples of policy structure drawn from quite different sources:

• the Australian Indigenous Governance Institute
• The University of Melbourne Policy Library
• Nancy Campbell’s book Writing Effective Policies and Procedures: a step-by-step resource for clear communication (Amacom,1998), and
• the Institute of Community Directors’ Policy Bank.

Noteworthy common elements are highlighted in the chart. These suggest the essence of all organisational policies, regardless of sector or entity type, while allowing additional elements according to the nature and needs of the organisation concerned.

https://bitly.ws/3gDv2

An Organisational Policy ‘Taxonomy’

 

In Carrots, Sticks and Sermons – sorting policy types, I outlined a broad range of policy categories. This provided a very simplified view of the various types of policy and policy instruments available for use in divers policy settings.

Excellent analyses of public policy typologies and taxonomies have been catalogued for many years (e.g. in 2003 Howlett and Ramesh identified 64 types of instrument in the economic policy field alone), however, these only seek to categorise government or political policies. They don’t encompass governance and operational policies used by organisations.

I have developed a partial taxonomy of Organisational Policies for use with my non-profit clients. This is quite idiosyncratic, and has not been developed according to the usual academic processes and standards. Nevertheless, as ‘Carrots, Sticks and Sermons‘ remains one of my most frequently viewed articles (even today, three and a half years after it was posted), I am prompted to offer two additional high-level summary charts for reference by non-profit policy workers.

The ‘map’ of broad policy types which appears in the header image seeks to highlight the distinction between Governance and Operational Policies within the Organisational Policy field. It also suggests some clustering of policy sub-types within these categories, although doubtless different sub-types would be required for organisations serving different purposes. For example the types of policies required by a university or school will be quite different to those required by an aid charity, or a professional society promoting ethical interactions with patients or clients.

The chart below, takes the suggested categories and sub-types of Organisational Policy, and offers selected examples of policies likely to be required by most non-profits in each of those areas. You could use this as a checklist if you like, to help you identify policies worth including in your governance/management ‘system of controls‘.

The distinction between governance and operational policies is helpful in organisations with staff. Small volunteer-run bodies may find the distinction less useful. Feel free to adapt the lists to your needs.

Future posts will discuss policy precedents and frameworks, with a view to offering NFP policy authors some structures and resources that may speed up the policy development and approval process.

https://polgovpro.blog/