James Bradley <<jb183>>
writes:

USHPA’s executive committee, which is a four person subset of the
26 member board, gets brought up as an example of what works well now. Ignoring
the problem of overworking four volunteers, the EC has appeared to function well
because it has been evaluated only on reactive work. Its members know they're on
the hook when something happens quickly, which includes many operational items
that can’t wait for the next board meeting. They’ve always stepped up to get us
through all manner of challenges, large and small, and notably the insurance
crisis. Hats off and huge thanks to all who have served on it.

What hasn’t been said or even noticed is that the EC does little proactive,
long-view work. They are acutely aware—as confirmed in conversations with
present and past EC members—that they aren’t the board, and they believe,
philosophically, that leading this work is the board’s job. The board has
periodically reinforced this view.

But the current board doesn’t do much long-view proactive work either, for
different reasons. Decision making in a large group gravitates to the average of
the ideas, which means innovation is scarce. Discussions of the most challenging
topics, the ones where it is hard to see what to do, the ones where the relevant
committee has not been able to make a concrete proposal, the ones that need a
plan before they can become part of what the staff works on, discussions of
these things, if they are started at all, tend to go on until they have to end,
without resolution. Then they are taken up again at the next meeting half a year
later, often with some hand-wringing about the fact that nothing has been done.
In this way our big, difficult issues don't get enough action, year after year,
unless they become a crisis the way insurance did.

The 10-member board will not have an executive committee, because the board will
be small enough to meet monthly on the phone, as the EC has been doing, but with
full authority to attend to both urgent and long-view, proactive work. Being on
this board will feel completely different than being on the EC has.

Enlarging the current executive committee wouldn’t make any difference because
it doesn’t address the core issue.

https://www.ushpa.org/member/governance-proposal-2018