On Mon, Feb 29, 2016 at 5:23 PM, Chris Keating <chriskeatingw...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, Feb 29, 2016 at 9:39 PM, Oliver Keyes <ironho...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> On Mon, Feb 29, 2016 at 2:58 PM, James Heilman <jmh...@gmail.com> wrote: >> > Regarding to Oliver's comment: "My concern is that when staff reached out >> > the Board replied with a letter indicating they had full and unanimous >> > confidence in our >> > leadership." >> > >> > This statement is not really true. We had a formal vote regarding the ED >> in >> > November and it was not unanimous. The vote unfortunately has not yet >> been >> > made public. >> > >> >> Very well, let me quote directly from the email sent to staff by >> Patricio Lorente in his role as Chair of the Board: >> >> "We are working with Lila to put together a plan to address these >> issues. We are confident that she has the capability and the >> commitment needed for this challenging time, and we know that, at the >> present time, she is listening carefully to the Board, to you, and to >> the community. **To that end, the Board remains unanimously committed in >> our support of Lila in her role** and in her efforts to adapt her >> leadership and to address these issues." >> >> Asterisks mine. If your commitment and straw poll wasn't unanimous >> your chair lied to staff, and that's not a great opening to our >> rebuilding. > > > If the Board had decided, formally or informally, not to sack Lila in their > November meeting then frankly "unanimous commitment to support her" is the > only thing they could have done. > > The only course of action open to a Trustee who felt they *could not* > support Lila continuing, if there was no majority to sack her right away, > would have been to resign themselves (which none of them did). > > Doubtless many of them used "support" in the meaning of "do whatever is in > their power to help improve Lila's performance and reduce stress on the > staff, while keeping a very close eye to see whether their original > instinct was in fact correct and whether Lila's departure was in fact > inevitable." > > (I also fail to see how the knowledge that the WMF Board retained > confidence in the ED's abilities by a 5-4 or 7-2 or whatever vote would > have helped *anyone* in November) >
Well, for me at least it would have given the impression that there was actually support and genuine empathy and understanding of the issues and concerns at the board's end. Because what "unanimous" achieved - beyond, as we're now discovering, apparently not being true, or at least being very economical with the truth - was conveying the message that the board was not particularly worried. That the efforts staff had made to surface issues, at risk to their own neck, had not been convincing, and that we were essentially on our own when it came to working out the problems. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
