There’s a particular kind of paralysis that sets in when everything feels uncertain.

I’ve witnessed this paralysis in boardrooms. It happens within leadership teams too. Even capable individuals face decisions they know are necessary but struggle to execute. This hesitation isn’t caused by incompetence or a lack of intelligence. Rather, it is the very human tendency to cling to existing plans, structures, and strategies, simply because letting go feels like admitting defeat.

The session on governing well in difficult times at Trustee Exchange was, at its core, about this. About what it actually takes to lead well when the ground beneath you is shifting. And about the specific habits, mindsets, and disciplines of agile board governance that separate boards that navigate difficulty with confidence from those who simply endure it.

In this article, I want to share the three big ideas from that session and what I believe they mean for anyone in a leadership or governance role right now.

Knowing What You’re Actually There to Do

The session opened with a challenge that sounded simple but cut deep: can your board clearly articulate what is distinctively valuable about your organisation?

Not just what you do. Not just your mission statement. But what you do that nobody else does, or nobody else does as well. I bet many of you reading this cannot.

In an era of declining public trust in institutions, this question matters more than ever. Donors, funders, beneficiaries, and the broader public are increasingly discerning. They want to know not just that an organisation is doing good work, but that their support, financial or otherwise, is going somewhere it couldn’t go more effectively elsewhere.

The session made clear that boards that can’t answer this question are at risk. Not just reputationally, but strategically. Without a clear sense of distinctive value, organisations say yes to too many things. They stretch themselves across priorities that sit outside their natural strength. And in doing so, they dilute the very thing that made them worth supporting in the first place.

I have seen this all too well. With every additional commitment an organisation makes it harder to succeed. The things they say no to however makes it that much easier to succeed. But success rarely comes if strategic intent, or the highest problem you are trying to solve as a group isn’t answered.

The Power of Deliberate Subtraction

The discipline the session recommended is one of deliberate subtraction: regularly ruling out priorities, not just adding them. Asking not only “should we do this?” but “should we do this?”, with an honest acknowledgement that someone else might be better placed to.

That takes confidence. And it takes a board that is secure enough in its identity not to mistake busyness for impact.

The End of the Five-Year Plan

There was one moment in this session that aligned with my thinking and advice, marking real change in how organisations need to think, and that was the discussion around strategic planning.

The traditional five-year strategic plan, the session argued, is no longer fit for purpose. Not because strategy doesn’t matter. It matters enormously. But because the pace of external change has outstripped the rhythm of traditional planning cycles.

Think about what has changed in the past five years alone: a global pandemic, an energy crisis, significant shifts in government policy, the rapid emergence of AI, and, for the charity sector specifically, significant changes in the funding landscape. An organisation that locked in a five-year plan in 2020 would have been navigating 2023 with a document that bore little resemblance to the world it was operating in.

The session’s recommendation was not to abandon the strategy, but to redesign how it works.

The Anchored Agility Approach

The new model is what I’d describe as an anchored agility approach:

• Keep the “true north.” The organisation’s core vision and enduring purpose should remain stable. This is the fixed point that everything else orbits around.
• Revisit strategic objectives annually. Not every five years. Every year. With honest reflection on what has changed externally and what needs to shift internally in response.
• Build in the expectation of change. Agile strategy isn’t reactive; it’s anticipatory. It builds the assumption of change into the planning process rather than treating change as an unwelcome disruption.

This aligns neatly with my advice of annual planning with three years in mind, quarterly discussions and reviews, and management & performance measures that track its success. Without this, I feel like organisations are guessing. The key is in getting the agility and nimbleness around it.

This shift requires a different kind of board conversation rooted in agile board governance. Less “are we on track with the plan?” and more “is the plan still the right plan?” It’s a subtle distinction, but it’s the difference between a board that governs and a board that leads.

The Four-Step Response

The third major theme of the session was one that nobody wants to think about until they have to.

How does a board respond when a crisis hits?

The session offered a clear, practical framework that I think is worth sharing in full, because in my experience, the organisations that handle crises worst are not the ones that lack good people. They’re the ones that lack a clear process!

The 4-Step Crisis Framework

The four-step crisis response the session outlined:

1. Establish the facts. Before anything else, resist the urge to react. Get clear on what has actually happened. Not what you’ve heard. Not what it looks like. What is verifiably true? Rumour and assumption are the enemies of good crisis management.
2. Assess the true urgency. Not everything that feels urgent is urgent. And in a crisis, the perception of urgency can lead boards into hasty decisions that create new problems whilst attempting to solve the original one. Ask: Does this need to be resolved in the next hour, the next day, or the next week? The answer should shape the pace and nature of the response.
3. Decide who is best placed to resolve it. This is a governance question as much as an operational one. Some crises are best handled by the executive team, with the board in a monitoring role. Others require direct board intervention. Clarity about who is responsible for what, and who has the skills and authority to act, is the difference between a coordinated response and a chaotic one.
4. Don’t hesitate to report to the Charity Commission. This one surprised some people in the room. But the message was clear: if a serious incident occurs, early and transparent reporting to the Charity Commission is almost always in the organisation’s best interest. Attempting to manage it quietly or hoping it resolves itself rarely ends well.

Witnessing some of these things myself, it may seem counter intuitive to say that I agree with the advice above because it feels scary. However, it is the collective responsibility of the board to be on the same page, follow due process, and work out the tough stuff together; otherwise, it can fall down like a house of cards.

What This Means for Boards Right Now

Governing well in difficult times isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about asking the right questions, consistently, honestly, and with the courage to act on what those questions reveal.

Here is what I’d take from this session into any governance or leadership setting:

• Get ruthlessly clear on your distinctive value. What are you uniquely positioned to do? Rule out everything that isn’t that, or that someone else could do as well or better.
• Redesign your strategic planning rhythm. If you’re still working to a fixed five-year plan, it’s time to rethink. Anchor your vision. Revisit your objectives annually. Build adaptability by design.
• Have a crisis protocol before you need it. Know the four steps. Know who is responsible for each. And remove the cultural barriers that make it difficult to escalate early.
• Distinguish governing from managing. Boards that get pulled into operational detail lose sight of their strategic role. The session was a reminder that the board’s job is to set direction, ask the hard questions, and hold the organisation accountable, not to run it.

The Wider Picture

There is something important in the idea of “agile board governance” that extends well beyond the charity sector.

We are living through a period of genuinely accelerating change. The organisations and the leaders who will thrive in this environment are those who can hold a clear sense of purpose whilst remaining genuinely open to changing how they pursue it.

That’s not an easy balance to strike. It requires confidence in the why and humility about the how. It requires boards willing to have uncomfortable conversations about what is and isn’t working. And it requires a culture in which honest reflection is valued more than the preservation of existing plans.

It’s very simple to me. It starts with honesty and a keen and fresh perspective on the reality you are facing. Once this can be seen in unison, time becomes your ally.

Final Thoght

Good governance has never been about having the perfect plan. It’s about having the clarity, the courage, and the discipline to keep making good decisions as circumstances change.

The organisations that govern well in difficult times are not the ones that predicted the difficulty. They’re the ones who were honest about it when it arrived and decisive about what needed to change.

What is one assumption your board is currently making about the future that deserves to be challenged?