Making Portland Shambhala governance more inclusive

Part 1

Since the beginning of the year, the Portland Shambhala directors and Governance Council have been thinking about how to make governance more open, less exclusive or mysterious. So, inspired by the TRIZ facilitation structure, we played a game at the March 2019 Council meeting.

We started by envisioning the worst possible actions. We brainstormed “evil ideas” on how the Governing Council could behave as badly as possible.  Each of us wrote an idea on a 3-by-5 inch card and passed it around. Each of us then tried to expand or make the idea more evil. Here is one example:

We discussed ways in which we might actually be doing some of those evil ideas without really intending to. For the following month we looked at all those ideas, clumped together by themes.

Meeting Schedule

• Don’t communicate – don’t announce meeting times or put on calendars
• Meet off-site, at irregular times, don’t announce meeting times, or announce false meeting times/locations
• Put up a paper calendar on the door only, updated only monthly

Confidentiality

• Sworn secrecy of all council member with dismissal if secrecy is breached
• Never share what council talks about, or share on a “need to know” basis
• What is talked about at meetings isn’t communicated
• Others are instructed not to talk about what’s discussed at council meetings

Restrict attendance

• Close the doors, or hold meetings in a tiny room where others can’t fit
• Invite folks, then uninvite them
• Refuse to be open to having public discussions
• Don’t allow outside participants at meetings

Process obscurity & confusion

• Keep which decisions are made by whom secret (Council, SMR, P&E)
• Keep rules vague
• Keep the identity of council members secret

Stonewalling

• When community asks for change, hold an “investigation” but do nothing
• Don’t listen to what members want
• Operate as if no one needs to know but us
• Just don’t communicate
• Hold on to decision-making authority in council.
• Never revise, back down or rescind a decision.

Organizational Structure

• Pretend one is not on the council when one is
• Deny the existence or importance of a council
• Hierarchical or siloed communication
• Thinking that leadership knows better than members

Part 2

In our April 2019 meeting we listed all of the things we have already done, are now doing or will do soon to go in the opposite direction from our “evil ideas” to make governance in Portland Shambhala more inclusive, more open, and accountable. Here is what we came up with:

Not keep our meeting schedule secret (i.e., be explicit about time and place of meeting):

• Meeting schedule is now always listed on the Center’s calendar and listed in the weekly newsletter
• Next step: publish agenda topics before the meeting

Be more forthright and transparent, and prevent “confidentiality” from making the Council overly secretive

• As Council secretary Jennifer working on note-taking and publication for Council meetings and for Community conversations
• Next step: Meeting notes are available in hard copy in a binder in the office for anybody to read and also available electronically for members in a systematic and timely way.

Welcome members to the meetings:

• Council Meetings are now held in the Main Shrine Room so participation by a larger group is easy. (Council met in a much smaller room for the previous nine years.)
• The Governing Council Meeting page on the Center calendar now says, “The Portland Shambhala Center Governing Council holds open meetings to discuss the business of the center. All members are welcome to attend.”

Be clear about what council does, why it exists, how it’s appointed, and how it’s accountable:

• As mentioned, publish our meeting times and agenda in advance and post our minutes after meetings
• The regularly-scheduled Sunday Community Conversations invite everyone who wants to discuss topics such as diversity and inclusion, power abuses in our local sangha, decision-making processes, and director feedback.
• Bring operational issues to weekly meetings and deal with day-to-day decision-making so that Governance Council meetings can focus on larger and longer-range issues.
• Next steps: Hold a council retreat on Governance / Portland by-laws that can be reviewed and discussed by the community. Publish a clear description of the role of council and center directors and how decisions are made

Be more transparent as an organization:

• Publish Council contact information on the Center’s website: https://portland.shambhala.org/governing-council/
• Use the weekly Operations Meeting to regularize day-to-day decision-making.
• Give council secretary Jennifer Green explicit responsibility for council transparency and accountability
• Next Step: Council is drafting an email to the community, clarifying our current decision-making processes

Actually listen to enable meaningful change:

• Keep discussing decision-making and other important governance and organizational topics on the Sunday Community Conversations agendas.
• Be explicit that decisions are not made in Sunday Community Conversations; Council members participate as individuals; those conversations frame our decisions going forward.
• Next Steps: Schedule more Town Hall meetings on core issues as a regular thing. Clarify decision-making process to make explicit how community members can be involved in decision-making (see Council retreat above).

Part 3

Janie and John are aiming to do a 5-7 minute video discussing what we see and how we see it to be published on the Center blog.

Here’s the first episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_iURjvlf8o