Deciding Among Neighbours
In a small community the people on both sides of a decision will still be there afterward, and so will you. That constraint changes how a…
Read →Idaho leadership
Leadership Lessons
Practical leadership lessons from experienced Idahoans across the state's industries, institutions, and communities — guidance you can apply in your own work.
How Public Trust Is Built and Spent
Legitimacy accumulates through explained reasoning and consistent conduct over years, and it is spent by a single decision nobody can account for. The exchange rate is…
Read →Your First Year on a Public Body
You will be asked to vote on things you do not yet understand, under constraints nobody has explained. What to do in the first month, and…
Read →Where Local Decisions Are Actually Made
Most of what shapes daily life in an Idaho community is settled by small bodies of ordinary people, meeting in the evening, frequently unopposed at election.…
Read →Institutions Under Population Change
Rapid growth strains institutions in a specific way: the arrangements that worked depended on shared assumptions, and newcomers arrive without them. The strain is usually misread…
Read →Running a Board Meeting That Matters
Volunteer boards spend most of their meeting time on reports and almost none on decisions. The agenda is the instrument, and almost nobody treats it as…
Read →The Founder Problem
Somebody who built a thing has an authority no successor can inherit and a set of judgments nobody can distinguish from the institution itself. Both are…
Read →Recording What Is Held
An afternoon, a recorder, and eight questions. The output is a dozen cases in the person's own words, which is the only form in which judgment…
Read →The Quorum Problem
Volunteer bodies fail from recruitment rather than from performance. The people who would serve well are the ones with the least available time, and nothing about…
Read →Holding Something in Trust
A steward is accountable to people who are not in the room and cannot advocate for themselves. That obligation conflicts with present interests constantly, and the…
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