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If the hyena is allowed to do this in enough meetings, his forcefulness will just grind down his bored colleagues, and at some point, they just start to bend to his will the minute he opens his mouth. And my friend acquiescing to a less than ideal decision for most of us feels better than the hurricane that results from the resistance. But giving into the hyena is. It isn't better, and it isn't productive for our organization. Welcome to the Successful Nonprofits Podcast. I'm Dolph Goldenberg. I am a consultant, coach, and confidant for leaders at small and large organizations across the country. And I bring over three decades of leadership and consulting experience building, growing, leading, and, yes, repairing organizations. And it's through that experience that I know every one of us has sat in a board meeting with with a hijacking hyena. He will literally take over the meeting and crowd out every other voice and every other opinion in the room. He speaks the loudest, with the most passion, and, quite frankly, for the most time, more time than everybody else combined. And when someone raises an alternative point, he buries them in arguments like a high school debate champion. And yes, friend. I use male pronouns in describing the hijacking hyena because while women can certainly play that role, in my experience, the hyena is a man 90% of the time. And if the hyena is allowed to do this in enough meetings, his forcefulness will just grind down as bored colleagues, and at some point, they just start to bend to his will the the minute he opens his mouth and my friend acquiescing to a less than ideal decision for most of us feels better than the hurricane that results from the resistance. But giving into the hyena, it isn't better and it isn't productive for our organization. While one poor decision may feel inconsequential, multiple subpar governance decisions ultimately erode the board's collective governance muscle. And it, at the end of the day, gives one board member just too much power. I've been thinking about this some because I recently was facilitating some policy revisions with the board, and the committee that was tasked with doing this had one member who definitely was a hijacking hyena. Despite me actively calling on other members to share their opinions, people, they just weren't willing to confront the forcefulness or, frankly, the frequency of his arguments. Instead, by the end of the meeting, everyone just acquiesced to the path that he wanted the board to follow. But here's the thing. The day after that meeting, a Couple people reached out to me, and they said to me they had reservations about the decision. They also shared with me that they disagreed with it, but they didn't feel comfortable asking the committee to reopen the conversation. As I said at the beginning, we've all been in this room, and this happens in every organization. I have seen this occur in my roles as a consultant, as an executive director, and as a board member and my friend, I'm sure you've experienced this, too. And it's because of those experiences that I knew just taking this back to the committee or even to the board in a way that was not fully structured was just going to result in the hijacking hyena taking over once again. So in the case of my client, I pulled a tool out of my toolbox that makes loud voices a bit quieter. And frankly, that tool is a concept from my high school and college debate days. As a way forward, I suggested a soft debate format. I called it Deliberation with Position Champions. And I did that because, you know, debate can sound scary to some people. This organization had three possible policy options. So we recruited a separate board champion for each position. And each champion was asked to develop their best case in one slide, just one slide, and present it at the board meeting. We were very prescriptive about the format that we asked them to follow. And so the first thing is, each champion had one minute and only one minute to explain why their option should be chosen. And then they had 30 seconds to explain why the other two options are less effective or desirable. And that was 30 seconds per option. So essentially, they had a total of two minutes to make their case. And then following each champion's presentation, any other board member could have up to 45 seconds to ask questions or speak about that option. The point here was that every board member could only do that once because we wanted to make sure that we left the space for everybody to be heard. We also made it clear that board members, they don't have to speak. We can't make them do that. But they also can't give their time to a colleague. If they don't use that time, it just doesn't get used. Now, once all board members had had the opportunity to share their thoughts or ask questions, each champion was given one final minute. And in that minute, they could address questions or concerns that were raised. It's kind of like a. A closing argument in a debate. Facilitation here was really important. The board chair of this organization facilitated that discussion. If the board chair was the hijacking hyena. Definitely not the case here. But if the board chair was, we would have needed to have a different facilitator. Additionally, another board member was recruited before the meeting to serve as timekeeper for the champions and the other board members. And I'll share with you, we chose the board member that almost everybody likes because you want that to be a popular person. It's someone who's able to say in a kind and gentle way, hey, you're out of time. After all three champions have presented and their closing arguments were done, we did an anonymous survey and that allowed board members to vote their conscience and not worry that someone was going to think, why did you vote against me? So we asked every board member to force rank those three options. And of course, when you force rank, you come up with a top two on average. So we took the top two choices and we then did another straw poll. We asked everyone to force rank those two. Now we have a top choice and a second choice. We had made this decision ahead of time and we'd communicated this, that the board was going to be given the opportunity to vote up or down on the top choice. And if the board votes yes, great. That's the path forward. If the board votes no, then the issue gets sent back to committee so that the committee can work through the issues in a way that's deliberate and intentional. And I like that word deliberative lot. Because really what we were doing here was we were using of debate structure to leverage the deliberative power of the board. Because let's face it, and you already know this, the best and highest use of your board, it's not just to listen passively and then rubber stamp whatever proposal is made by the chief executive, the executive committee, or the hijacking hyena. No, the best use of your board is to leverage their ability to consider an issue. And I believe a good way to do that is through that formal debate structure. Again, I did not position this with the board as a debate. Instead I really position this as a deliberation with position champions. The word debate can be scary and it can scare some of your best champions, some of your most eloquent and persuasive champions off. And so let's just think about this as deliberation with position champions. I will let you know that this entire process took about 30 to 45 minutes within a board meeting. That's a lot of time in a 90 minute board meeting. But it's time really well spent because board members, by the end, by the time they voted. They felt fully informed of the options. They also really felt like they'd had a high level of engagement. As an executive director, you already know that allowing that hijacking hyena to dominate deliberation, it just ends up creating a bigger governance problem over time. But you also know in your role as a staff member how incredibly hard it is to call that person out or to say, hey, you know, we need to set up a structure so that this person's voice is not as loud and so that softer voices are heard as well. Since you can't force the board to deliberate in a structured way, it's going to be imperative that you rally board leadership to this effort. And specifically, you know, start with your board chair, have the conversation, suggest a structured debate format that will help you have good deliberation in your board meeting. And if you're looking at me and saying, dolph, my board chair is the hijacking hyena, okay, then think about some of your other board officers who witness this behavior in every single meeting and have a conversation with them and help them really bring the board to the point that they are ready to have strong and structured deliberative conversations. That is not just one person telling the rest of the board what they're going to do. Friend, I know that the hijacking hyena is a problem in the nonprofit sector, not just because of my own lived experience, but but also in my work as a coach. I am often working with chief executives who share with me that they have a disruptive or unproductive board member that always becomes a part of the conversation. And by helping my clients create structures like debate meetings, they can slow down the hijacking hyenas while also encouraging everyone to voice their opinions without that fear of being shut down. The more we use level setting structures like this one, let's face it, the more effective our boards will be at making those governance level decisions. In this episode, friend, I shared one really good tool that can help you and your board be more effective in governing and running the organization. But if you're struggling with board dynamics, board engagement, or governance decision making, let's talk about whether executive coaching, board development, or a board retreat could help your organization. You can reach out to me@dolphuccessfulnonprofits.com that, my friend, that is our episode for the week. I hope that you have gained some insight to help you and your nonprofit thrive. And I'm not an accountant nor an attorney, and neither I nor the consulting practice provide tax legal or accounting advice this podcast. It's for informational purposes only and should not be relied on for tax, legal or accounting advice. Please. If that is what you need, find a licensed, qualified professional in your area and get the counsel you need.