Years ago I explained to project leads how to handle their board. Today I write for the board. Because most get exactly the program they demand. No more.
The usual advice literature turns it around: it explains to the program lead how to catch, inform and keep his sponsor happy. That is the subordinate’s perspective. I want the other one. A program is only as good as the questions its sponsor asks, and most sponsors ask the wrong ones. Or none at all.
The best sponsor I had sat at one of the top levels and still led by serving. His door was not symbolically open, it was open. He took the smallest specialist level seriously and passed information from the top downward instead of hoarding it. He brought employees up from the depths of the organization so they could present their topics to leadership themselves. That is how a bond arises between the very bottom and the very top, one that binds more strongly than any pay round. And, as a side effect, what otherwise never reaches the top arrives: what is really going on in the engine room.
The other case
I have experienced the opposite too. Many leaders at this level are afraid, of exposure, of competition. Out of that fear, whatever does not absolutely have to get through is sealed off and blocked. The consequence: the line hears from above only demands detached from practice, and above, from below, only the escalations arrive that could not be smothered in time.
In one of my programs a choleric member sat on the steering committee, trying to keep his surroundings under control with a mix of flattery and shouting. Micromanagement instead of strategy, distrust instead of support. He almost tipped over my most successful mandate to date within the first six months, through constant meddling alone. That it did not come to that was thanks to the good sponsor, who stepped in. A strong sponsor rescues a program that a weak one, on the same committee, would talk to death.
The one question
And the one question a board should ask its program lead and asks too rarely? It is unspectacular: what do you need from me? How can I help? Whoever means it seriously gets honest answers, and with them an early-warning system no status report delivers.
A program is only as good as its sponsor’s questions. In the end the sponsor gets the program he demands, for better or worse.
