Subject: Re: [Iasa20] "self selected" seats (was Re: Board Size)

From: "Livingood, Jason" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 13:59:06 +0000

On 5/6/18, 9:39 PM, "iasa20 on behalf of Andrew Sullivan" <[email-masked] on behalf of [email-masked]> wrote:
    
    One thing that people seem not to be taking into account in the
    discussion is our current practice, and particularly its limitations.
    The nomcoms regularly report a difficult time with the IAOC.  We have
    a tiny pool of volunteers, and it doesn't seem to be growing.  The
    nomcom is already badly overtaxed, and it isn't plain (at least to me)
    that adding more to its plate will give us good results.  Worse, the
    tiny pool of volunteers has at least as much risk of the "perpetuation
    problem" as any other mechanism that people might think of.  To bring
    this home a little, I think I'm on the IAOC now because I was on it
    before, because I was IAB chair.  People who knew me in that role
    imagined I'd be able to do this, and so here I am.  But that suggests
    to me that there's an "insider bias" to the current system.  

[JL] I personally perceive a strong insider bias, so it does seem a risk to take into account here.

    But there is another issue as well.  We are setting up a company.
    Companies benefit from some diversity in their oversight.  Yet our
    community has a kind of unity that means we have a number of shared
    assumptions that are hard for us even to notice.  (This is also why
    we're such a hard club to join.)  This is made worse by the small pool
    of volunteers.  It would be quite valuable, I think, to have some
    voices around who question some of those assumptions.  This is why
    many corporate boards have "outside" directors.  (I'm aware that
    doesn't work everywhere, but that is no argument that the principle is
    a bad one.  A good principle badly executed is still a good
    principle.)
    
[JL] This is a good point. In fact, it is now often considered a board best practice to ensure a certain number of independent outside directors are on the board. These are ones that come from outside the industry/community/whatever. One of the benefits is often to question why things are done a certain way, which can often generate some creative self-assessment on practices/processes/etc. It is important to bring in outsides with a diversity of perspectives and experience.

    I am very far from convinced that people who are experienced with
    other nonprofits are going to be willing to go through our nomcom
    process.  It works for us in selecting the IESG and IAB (and a couple
    IAOC) members, in part because we're drawing from our own community.
    _We_ understand why we do things the way we do.  But if a goal is to
    get some outside points of view who will question why we make the
    administrative decisions we do, then we will need some way to recruit
    the necessary people.  Asking them to go through an unfamiliar
    process in which they are evaluated by people chosen through a random
    number generator is, I think, a way to discourage such recruits.

[JL] On a personal level, I tend to agree as well. Some of our processes at the IETF, when viewed from outside the community, can come across as a bit odd. I think you are likely correct that this could dissuade folks from considering service on this board. The job of finding qualified directors may be difficult enough without that complication, and we'll often be competing for candidates with other prospective boards that may have much simpler and more easily understood selection processes.

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From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 15:11:36 +0100

On 07/05/18 14:59, Livingood, Jason wrote:
> 
> [JL] On a personal level, I tend to agree as well. Some of our
> processes at the IETF, when viewed from outside the community, can
> come across as a bit odd.
That is true. However, they are also IMO better than processes
used by many other groupings. And going through the nomcom
process would I think help any incoming board member understand
the job better.

The points about diversity and different perspectives are good
ones though. But the description of this new process can call out
that having some non IETF-regulars on the board for those reasons
is a goal, as can the usual description of skills needed sent to
nomcom each cycle by the board, (assuming that's done as was done
for IESG), and the board itself can devote effort to try find
folks willing to volunteer and put themselves through the nomcom
process.

So fwiw, I continue to think that using nomcom to select all these
folks (bar one from ISOC) is correct.

S.