The LNC Report – Analysis Part 2

Here the report complains that LNC Chairs have set the vision for the national party:

Yet, tumultuous shifts in leadership perspectives are not the only factors impacting how the organization may have gotten to this point. Some of the current reputation and financial standing could be based on the historical pattern of how the organization’s vision has been established. In the past decade, vision was nearly always crafted and articulated by the person elected as the board chair. That person was usually elected based on his/her particular stated vision for the organization.

It would appear that only the board chair and not the full board, held the vision-making power for the organization. When board members disagreed with chair, disharmony rooted, and public displays of that disharmony subsequently further impacted the organization’s reputation and credibility among some stakeholders, both internal and external. This in turn, likely impacted membership and fundraising.

This model likely worked from the lens of getting things done for the organization in the past. This model likely worked as long as the chair’s vision was in alignment with enough members and donors to support the work. However, recent years have shown an increasingly fractionalized membership of the party, which means having only the chair’s vision as the organization’s vision likely is not a viable path for its future. Also, it is decidedly not a best practice.

This historical pattern has left the full board without the ownership of creating a collective vision for many years. As chairpersons changed, sometimes abruptly, so did the vision and path of the organization. Over time this zigzag, stop-start-resume pattern has eroded the trust of its see-saw weary members and donors, and somewhat neutralized the potential effectiveness of the national board.

We note the claim “As chairpersons changed, sometimes abruptly, so did the vision and path of the organization.”  That’s an interesting claim, which would require detailed historical analysis to validate.  (Your author believes that the claim is in general untrue.) As a start, the job title is Chair, not Chairman.

Readers are invited to identify radical changes in policy from Chair to Chair between 2006  and 2022. Readers may also recall the period in which the LNC was controlled by the Treasurer, not the Chair, at the level of supporters having cue cards so they would each know who was to make each motion, the text of the motion, and how they were to vote on different issues.  Changing Chair has no effect on this situation.

“… without the ownership of creating a collective vision…”  Ignoring the possible need for an English translation of this phrase, we have recently had a Board most of whose members did have a collective vision for specific new policies.  That was the Board elected in 2022 and in fair part returning in 2024. The board elected in 2000 spent much of its effort creating the 2001 Strategic Plan, a collective vision for the party.

As readers may recall, each time, following the collective vision, the LNC hovered on the brink of  financial collapse.   Some of you will recall the auditor’s report, from the early noughts, that indicated that it was not obvious that the party would be able to continue. This time, it’s the National Chair making the statement, in his recent email.