FROM THE PRESIDENT the guidelines established by the board. However, the board can hold the CEO accountable for any and all policies the board developed.
Ritchie Bryant, MS, CDI, CLIP-R Board President Ritchie Bryant, MS, CDI, CLIP-R lives in Texas. He is a graduate of Gallaudet University and McDaniel College.
T
his issue focuses on ethics, which provides me with the perfect opportunity to talk about the board’s ethical decision-making process as it applies to RID policies and governance. We all can agree that ethics are extremely important, but so many people question the RID Board of Directors’ decisions on many occasions. By examining our work as a board, we can then determine whether our decisions are made based on ethics or not. First: does the Board of Directors apply ethics to itself? Absolutely. While each board member has individual sets of ethics, we are bound and guided by specific principles, such as the RID Code of Professional Conduct, training, and so much more. What drives the board primarily are our legal and fiduciary duties. For example, the Enron fiasco (https. wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal) resulted in a federal law governing board behaviors and outcomes, like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Such legislative steps (https:// enwikipedia.wikipedia.org/wiki/SarbanesOxley_Act) have changed the governance landscape. In practice, the RID board’s scope is policy governance without heavy involvement in daily operations; the CEO and headquarters staff are responsible for operationalizing
Clarifying the roles between the board and operations results in a healthy, successful separation of roles and functions; it also prevents conflicts if the board attempts to get involved in operations. Furthermore, the board has a fiduciary duty to apply our best ethical considerations and our responsibility is to ensure the organization runs smoothly and effectively. If the board doesn’t consider other possibilities that would benefit us in the long run, our ethical obligations to RID are violated. It is unethical for the board to become involved in operations. The board also has a different set of ethical imperatives — our fiduciary duties — to adhere to. The board also has an essential function: ensure that the policy-making processes at RID are informed by best practices from within and outside the organization. This is why non-profit organizations, even membership-driven ones, routinely bring in subject matter experts (SME) to help craft effective policies. Since the board has the latitude to establish policy at the highest level within the organization in virtually every realm, including legal, financial, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), we must make the best possible decisions with all the options in front of us. RID should be proud of how far we have come. If we look at RID’s storied past, the work the board has done was typically through a collaborative effort that was and continues to be volunteer-led. As the interpreting profession begins to evolve into a more sophisticated vocation with more complex interplaying layers, our small, mighty pool of volunteers is increasingly called on to serve RID in roles outside their area of expertise. Despite their dedication and best intentions, this practice can sometimes lead RID on a long and winding road (or even switchback paths at times). The body of knowledge that becomes best practices comes from the experience and mistakes of those who have come before 5
us — a trial-and-error approach, if you will. Many other non-profit organizations with equally noble missions and surprisingly similar challenges have gone down this path before us. This is why the current RID board incorporates the guidance of SME familiar with best practices and carries expertise on issues and aspects of our policy-making processes. The SME will work closely with the board, headquarters staff, and members to craft effective policies. As we continue the work in aligning RID with the diversifying demographics of America, SME will be carefully chosen who best share those goals. Members’ input is still very much welcome and valued as the board serves individuals on the front lines. RID’s incredibly dedicated volunteer leaders have been an enormous asset to the organization. It is time to build up our collective expertise to pursue RID’s vision more effectively. An important part of this is to bring in SME, including those who can examine matters through a DEI lens. So the question foremost in my mind as I work with the board is: would continuing the trial-and-error approach be an ethical way of running our organization? Does this approach best serve our communities? Are there novel and evidence-based approaches that we can use to serve our communities that we are not aware of because we haven’t looked outside our sphere of influence? In the past few months, the board and headquarters have had conversations with SME that made us realize how much we do not know. If you ask whether I feel confident that this practice of actively incorporating SME to guide RID going forward will allow the elevation of both our members and the communities we serve, I’d say yes. The infusion of ethical governance principles leads to proactive decision-making, which leads to effective responses. As we embrace proactive decision-making, adherence to ethics is a catalyst for change. The board remains committed to communicating those organizational shifts as changes are enacted at the governance level.
