1. Bigger Boards are unwieldy—yes, they can be. This is really a question of Board process though. A good chairperson and CEO can keep meetings on track, prevent grandstanding etc.
2. Board members can interfere and slow things down—yes, bad Board members can, but you can manage this (especially with a competent chairperson). Imagine an employee told you that they won’t accept having a manager, because managers can interfere and slow things down. I imagine the response would be ‘yes, bad managers do that; but you don’t get to opt out of management altogether because of that. If it happens, let us know and we’ll address it.‘
3. It takes time to assess potential Board members—yes, it does. I think our latest round has taken around 30 hours split between 4 people. Of course, it also takes time to hire staff. I guess a Board member would be seen as somewhere between 0.5x and 1.5x as important as a top hire depending on context, and you can adjust your hiring process accordingly.
4. Appointing Board members with an outside view will reduce value alignment—it depends. In our recent round, we used some short screening questions to assess value-alignment on the application form. We found that 22⁄27 applicants met our bar for ‘would be a valuable, values-aligned Board member’. Only one of the applicants could be considered a ‘core EA’.
5. All the best potential Board members are already core EAs/my mates/part of my organisation’s universe—I assume you don’t mean this.
6. One bad Board member can hijack organisations and make them ineffective—this seems very unlikely because they are only one of several and they would need to overcome other Board members, the CEO and the organisation’s founding documents to do this. Theories about how people from outside EA will infiltrate Boards and change the organisation’s mission tend to sound like conspiracy theories to me.
7. My org is only just starting, so can’t I just appoint quickly from people I already trust? - yes, plausibly. This will come with significant downsides in terms of accountability, blindspots and diversity, but you might choose to prioritise speed and ease at the start. I would still probably recommend an open call to see who you get; and at the least have a plan for doing proper Board recruitment within 24 months.
Risks/objections/exemptions:
1. Bigger Boards are unwieldy—yes, they can be. This is really a question of Board process though. A good chairperson and CEO can keep meetings on track, prevent grandstanding etc.
2. Board members can interfere and slow things down—yes, bad Board members can, but you can manage this (especially with a competent chairperson). Imagine an employee told you that they won’t accept having a manager, because managers can interfere and slow things down. I imagine the response would be ‘yes, bad managers do that; but you don’t get to opt out of management altogether because of that. If it happens, let us know and we’ll address it.‘
3. It takes time to assess potential Board members—yes, it does. I think our latest round has taken around 30 hours split between 4 people. Of course, it also takes time to hire staff. I guess a Board member would be seen as somewhere between 0.5x and 1.5x as important as a top hire depending on context, and you can adjust your hiring process accordingly.
4. Appointing Board members with an outside view will reduce value alignment—it depends. In our recent round, we used some short screening questions to assess value-alignment on the application form. We found that 22⁄27 applicants met our bar for ‘would be a valuable, values-aligned Board member’. Only one of the applicants could be considered a ‘core EA’.
5. All the best potential Board members are already core EAs/my mates/part of my organisation’s universe—I assume you don’t mean this.
6. One bad Board member can hijack organisations and make them ineffective—this seems very unlikely because they are only one of several and they would need to overcome other Board members, the CEO and the organisation’s founding documents to do this. Theories about how people from outside EA will infiltrate Boards and change the organisation’s mission tend to sound like conspiracy theories to me.
7. My org is only just starting, so can’t I just appoint quickly from people I already trust? - yes, plausibly. This will come with significant downsides in terms of accountability, blindspots and diversity, but you might choose to prioritise speed and ease at the start. I would still probably recommend an open call to see who you get; and at the least have a plan for doing proper Board recruitment within 24 months.