Why Not India?

I wonder if at some point the shock of snow in mid-April will wear off. When you live in Northern New Hampshire 3 – 5 inches of cement falling from the sky apparently often follows 75-degree days in early spring.

Shortly after dawn this morning I left my house, battled the weather and drove South to a conference in Manchester, NH. Harvard professor and nonprofit consultant Cathy Trower gave an animated, comprehensive and digestible workshop, Governance as Leadership, for nonprofit leaders and board members.

During the 6 hours workshop I filled page after page in my black moleskin notebook. In the margins I jotted books to purchase, timeless quotes on leadership and planned future board meeting agendas. One particular line of questioning stayed with me as left for the day. “Why this board?” Meaning would the impact on the organization be the same or similar if you swapped board with another organization? What makes this group especially poised to do the work in front of them? What if you exchanged just a few members – in this case does the question become why me? Why I am I an integral part of this board? What is the legacy of this group? Of each individual member?

All nonprofit organizations are governed by a board of directors, who are stewards of the organizations assets and generators of policies which guide the strategic direction of the organization. Board members donate time, their professional talents and financial resources to further the work of the organization.

Competent, committed, passionate board members are not easy to come by. I doubt there are many if any organizations that have a stream of potential members banging down their door. When you have a group of decided members in place an organization should consider it a job well done, right?

Assembling a group of people of willing stewards for an organization who show up for meetings but can not offer a compelling answer to the previous question does not inspire hope for bright future.

I dissected these questions and the implications of various answers as Oliver Wyman read Thomas Friedman’s 3.0 update of The World is Flat on my drive home.

Wyman, reading Friedman, spends at least the first three cds of the audiobook discussing the “flattening” of the world with a particular focus on the outsourcing of jobs to places like Bangalore, India. The jobs referenced are low level jobs by American standards but as technology and the drive of workers to raise themselves out of poverty increases more jobs are headed out of the US to places like China and India.

Listening to transcripts from the day Friedman spent in a call center in India something clicked. The men and women working at this call center clock epic hours doing thankless work. In the face of irate passengers with lost luggage, dissatisfied customers and disgruntled cardholders they maintain a positive attitude and commitment to excellent service.

Why these employees? They are committed to raising the standard of living for themselves and their families. Their passion for this achievement gives them reason to find a kind word in the face of slander, tolerance in the intolerable and ultimately is part of the reason this job market continues to grow.

It was almost dark when I drove the last three miles to my house. The drive home took almost 4 hours. I shut my car off still thinking about myself as a professional and as a board member.

I decided if I don’t want my job or board tenure outsourced, I should regularly ask myself, Why me? What is the legacy of the board that I serve on?