Committees, Boards and Councils

He must have been little more than a 16-year-old when he received a phone call from The Salvation Army’s leader in the Eastern Cape. ‘Youth for Christ want a Salvationist to join their committee,’ he told me. ‘How about it?’ That gave me my first introduction to putting heads together to plan and organise things like Billy Graham-type crusades, film shows, Easter Camps.
 
In a small way I’d been introduced to sitting together around a table in the scout troop’s Court of Honour, the brass fleur-de-lis at the top of the flag pole placed upright when matters requiring confidentiality were discussed. I was being trusted. Secrecy had to prevail.
 
Responsibilities increased when I was elected to the committee over-sighting one of the evening student clinics held in Cape Town’s townships each week. We worked under professional supervision late into the night, beneficial no doubt to the patients who were never in short supply, and to those of us learning to be better doctors.
 
So I’d had a little practice by the time the Chikankata years dawned. I inherited a type-written manual on the governance of Salvation Army hospitals, but I had to do it my way, and I did. No surprise then that a colleague returned from homeland furlough with a gift for me: Hospital Management! I got the message. Being a doctor was one thing; managing a hospital and leading people was something else.
 
Whilst I was chairing the management board at the hospital I resisted nomination to chair the executive committee of CMAZ (Churches Medical Association of Zambia). ‘Let me give my time elsewhere,’ I told them. I was contributing to the wider community: District Development Committee, Examinations Committee of Zambia’s Medical Council, the Health Committee for Zambia’s Third National Development Plan, The Essential Drugs Formulary etc. My ever-patient wife might have thought I was over-doing it, but said nothing. It was all part of a day’s work - or should I say night? But one of my hospital colleagues blew a fuse. ‘You’re leaving us to get on with the real work,’ he told me, ‘while you sit around a table just talking in committees.’ He must have known. He was a psychiatrist, but he had a point. Little did he know that I’d have much preferred the bedside to the boardroom.
 
The 1980s in London as international medical adviser gave me opportunity to share a growing experience with colleagues. Contact with Canadian hospital administrators taught me a lot. I could share recently learned skills with others in India, Africa and elsewhere. I believed in cultivating a sense of participation and ownership, to listen carefully and summarise and then recognise that consensus has emerged, even when a tinge of disagreement might linger. Close watching of body language was part of the task of understanding each member. But equally i told people that there come times when leaders need to make up their mind and decide. There is a danger that managers fall into the trap of believing the work gets done at committee level. Implementation is what counts.
 
My parallel work with The Leprosy Mission introduced me to their management style, strongly influenced by the democratic non-conformism of the free churches’ diaconal system. That was in sharp contrast to the much more autocratic system for The Salvation Army. But even there checks and balances, especially over budgets and finance force them into a collective approach. Much time can be spent talking over the minutiae of expenditure.
I served on a variety of Leprosy Mission committees, but mostly on their Technical Reference Panel. In the 80s I agreed to accept nomination to the chair, and, to my surprise, found myself elected. Within days a highly respected academic member told me and the TLM management that he thought it was a big mistake. ‘We need Paul’s challenging contributions,’ he explained, ‘and will lose that if he’s the chairman.’ I was learning something about myself. ‘Well, if that’s my role’, I thought, ‘I must resign.’ I did, but returned to the chair in later years. And when not in the chair in my concluding time with The Salvation Army I exercised that role of trying to look at things differently. You don’t end up with popularity, by asking the awkward questions, but that’s a small price to pay if it’s to serve the greater good.
 
In spite of being given enormous powers, a Salvation Army leader has to chair a number of committees, boards or councils, all with varying levels of authority. India and South Africa had their own corporate styles created by local cultures, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. I felt it necessary to lay down a few rules: always address the chair; never interrupt; no personal references, either praise or criticism. Some didn’t like that, but we had to get on with each other - and generally we did. And speaking of that, I must pay tribute to a range of people who supported me over the years. The special relationship between the chairman and an executive director, the secretary or someone in similar position is crucial to the good function of an organisation. The fact that some of those remain good friends is a miracle.
 
The final Salvation Army appointment as Secretary for South Asia gave me the opportunity to chair the Conference of Indian Leaders. I inherited a pattern where they spent a couple of days formulating recommendations. ‘Enough of those,’ I said. ‘As we discuss things together I’ll realise there are things I need to do. I’ll jot them down. It’ll be up to me. I suggest you do the same.’ Nobody objected – at least none that I was aware of!
 
When it came to my final years of working life I went back to the bedside. Margaret knew i probably function best on a one-to-one basis; she knew that most of my life had been taken up with ‘administration’. ‘I want you to do your hobby in retirement,’ she told me. I found myself in palliative care. It was a relatively junior role, though some of my colleagues giggled as they looked at my greying hair. Some called me ‘the prof’. Even then I was asked to take on other roles. I declined. ‘I’ve had enough,’ I told them. ‘Just let me get on with the real work.’
 
And now I can just take time to sit back and ponder what opportunities I’ve had, what splendid colleagues I’ve had. I am indeed a fortunate man.
 
August 2020