Charities must not allow fear to become our chief decision-maker

I can’t tell you the number of calls and messages I have been dealing with lately from chief executives and trustees who are racked with fear of getting into trouble.

I often get calls when they are in financial trouble or operational trouble, or are facing a sticky personnel issue and want a friendly ear and a bit of advice.

That’s normal in my experience and unchanged over my quarter-century at DSC. But the calls I’m getting now are very different.

These calls are about the kind of trouble that starts with a social media pile-on. The trouble that comes wrapped in legal language and accompanied by a threat to someone’s reputation.

Most ‘troubles’ cause anxiety and exhaustion – not that many result in genuine fear. But too often these days, this is the case.

Fear has always existed in the charity sector but recently it feels as though it has become an invisible board member: Ms Fearity Doom-mongerer, sitting quietly in meetings, looking for opportunities to scaremonger, rushing people to action before they have had time to think.

One area where this is particularly evident is around trans inclusion and gender identity. Whatever your views on the wider debate, there is no doubt that many charities are navigating a genuinely difficult and evolving landscape. Court judgments, regulatory guidance, public expectations and lived experience all have a role to play.

Leaders and trustees are trying to make sense of complex issues while also worrying about challenges from campaign groups, social media criticism and, increasingly, the prospect of lawfare.

The result can be a rush to action: policies rewritten overnight, statements drafted before the facts are understood. Decisions taken not because they are right, but because they are quick and they feel safer.

Fear has a peculiar way of disguising itself as urgency: the assumption seems to be that if we don’t make a decision immediately, we will somehow get into more trouble.

But is that really true?

Most governance failures I have encountered over the years have not happened because organisations took too long to think. They happened because organisations stopped thinking altogether!

I have lost count of the number of situations that escalated because people felt compelled to say something, do something or make an announcement before they properly understood what they were dealing with, or the unintended consequences that might follow.

They hadn’t recognised that every decision comes with a degree of risk and their job is to weigh the risks, decide which ones they are prepared to live with and, most importantly, make sure they have recorded their thinking.

Sometimes the bravest thing a board can do is pause: not to avoid making a decision or to kick the can down the road. But to create enough space to make the right decision.

Good governance is rarely fast governance. Trustees aren’t rewarded for setting speed records. They are there to exercise judgment, to weigh evidence, to ask difficult questions and to understand consequences.

That takes time.

Of course there are moments when immediate action is required, but that’s genuinely rare. Many of the thornier cultural, legal and reputational issues facing charities today require something different.

They require courage. The courage to acknowledge uncertainty; the courage to seek advice, the courage to listen and the courage to resist pressure to be seen ‘acting’ before you have worked out what action is actually needed!

The irony is that taking your time is often the safest course of all.

You are unlikely to face serious consequences for carefully considering evidence, taking legal advice and reaching a reasoned conclusion, even if that takes time. You are far more likely to face criticism for making a hasty decision that later proves to be flawed.

Fear tells us that speed is safety. Experience tells us something different.

Our sector was built on compassion, justice and service. We should not allow fear to become our chief decision-maker. We owe our beneficiaries, our staff, our volunteers and ourselves something better than that.

The next time an issue lands on your desk and demands an immediate response, ask yourself if this is genuinely urgent, or are you simply afraid because Fearity’s fears scared you?

The answer will tell you everything you need to know.

This article was originally published on the Third Sector website, take a look here.