[ARIN-consult] Fwd: [arin-announce] Consultation on Increasing the Size of the ARIN Board of Trustees
Mike Burns
mike at iptrading.com
Wed Mar 2 17:45:39 EST 2022
Diversity or lack thereof is not my particular concern, although I do favor diverse thinking, experience, and knowledge related to numbers stewardship and don't think that is necessarily bound to other measures of diversity.
Rather, it is the preventing of board capture which particularly drives my support of the board expansion.
I rather favor Owen's suggestion.
Regards,
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: bzs at theworld.com <bzs at theworld.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2022 4:24 PM
To: vinton cerf <vgcerf at gmail.com>
Cc: Mike Burns <mike at iptrading.com>; arin-consult <arin-consult at arin.net>
Subject: Re: [ARIN-consult] Fwd: [arin-announce] Consultation on Increasing the Size of the ARIN Board of Trustees
I'm sort of amazed that after at least 40+ years of diversity discussion and practices (obviously not limited to the networking
sphere) we go right back to year zero on the issue of whether or not including members of varying race, gender, etc introduce diversity and are a good thing or not.
One thing is certain, the net/email/lists seem to make people believe they are gods and if they wish to advocate whether or not the earth is flat well, it's their keyboard to bang on, no need for external reference, studies, thoughts from experienced professionals, etc.
Why not type "the value of diversity in governance" and read through some of the hits. Or read one or two from respected sources, including retrospective findings of studies on the topic such as:
https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2020/07/14/maximizing-the-benefits-of-board-diversity-lessons-learned-from-activist-investing/
or
https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/tools-resources/diversity-nonprofit-boards
etc.
also maybe enter "diversity and governance" into Amazon's book search and consider some titles.
> On Tue, Mar 1, 2022 at 7:11 PM Mike Burns <mike at iptrading.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Ted,
>
> I appreciate your general feelings about diversity, but diversity of
> thought is really the significant factor.
> I don't think diversity of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or
> any of that matters in decisions about the stewardship of numbers.
> But diversity of thought is different and I don't think superficial
> diversity is the desire here, although I concur it may have been in the
> past.
>
> In addition to diversity of thought, one of the reasons offered for this
> change was protection from board capture.
> Although you may be right about difficulties reaching consensual decisions
> with larger boards, and those difficulties making larger boards appear
> conservative, I find that as organizations grow larger they actually grow
> less conservative as a rule. We could argue that point.
>
> But the advantages gained by making board capture more difficult outweigh
> the disadvantages associated with slower decision-making.
> And advantages of true diversity of thought and relevant experience are
> even more important.
>
> A board of only six members is very easy to capture and in the workings of
> the last NomCom I detected a real danger of that happening at ARIN.
>
> I take it at face value that the current and prior boards were honestly
> interested in reviewing ARIN governance and that this recommendation
> resonates with more than just a hired consultant but with the board members
> who commissioned the review.
>
> I am not a fan of ARIN expanding its number stewardship responsibilities
> beyond what is minimally necessary. I am not a fan of the board making
> charitable donations or spending lots of money on items tangential to
> number stewardship but some of the issues mentioned below do intersect with
> those responsibilities. Included among these are cybersecurity, risk
> management, and legal issues associated with the registration of
> increasingly valuable resources. These are issues the earliest boards may
> not have had to deal with, but these have become important today, and
> likely there will be other issues that arise in the future.
>
> It makes sense with proliferating duties to have a larger board, and
> additionally the protection afforded against board capture lead me to
> support this increase in board size.
>
> Regards,
> Mike Burns
>
>
>
>
>
> ---- On Tue, 01 Mar 2022 16:06:25 -0500 Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm at ipinc.net>
> wrote ----
>
>
> Yes, this sort of thing is all the rage today. It's a big fad.
> Predictably the phrase "Increase diversity of thought on issues
> impacting the community" was included as a poison pill.
>
> Anyone arguing against the idea is immediately labeled as being against
> the magic "diversity" word and thus a bigot and racist and so has lost
> the argument before they even make it.
>
> You might consider that a hired consultant who says "thank you for that
> fat check you gave me, the reality is you are doing nothing wrong and
> don't need any of my suggestions" is going to be viewed as a scammer
> at worst, and a stupid waste of money at best. Management consultants
> ALWAYS recommend changes. You could hire a consulting firm to study
> the most successful and profitable company in the world and they would
> find something wrong.
>
> Go ahead if you want. It just means that even less will get done
> since in general the more members on any sort of governing committee or
> team, the more conservative it is, and the harder it is to arrive at
> a consensus.
>
> https://hbr.org/2009/05/why-teams-dont-work
>
> In another decade the next consultant will recommend shrinking the
> board
> so it really doesn't matter what you do now.
>
> Ted Mittelstaedt
>
> -------- Forwarded Message --------
> Subject: [arin-announce] Consultation on Increasing the Size of the
> ARIN
> Board of Trustees
> Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2022 13:54:35 -0500
> From: ARIN <info at arin.net>
> To: arin-announce at arin.net <arin-announce at arin.net>
>
> The Board of Trustees maintains authority over the scope, mission, and
> along with the President and Chief Executive Officer establishes ARIN’s
> strategic direction and fiscal oversight. The Board also has oversight
> authority of the nomination, appointment, and election of individuals
> to
> Board committees and similar roles.
> Over the past two years, as part of its fiduciary duties, the ARIN
> Board
> of Trustees (“Board”) has undertaken a review of ARIN’s governance
> structures, including the size of the Board. As part of this effort, an
> independent, outside consultant was engaged to review ARIN’s governance
> structures and provide recommendations.
> One recommendation from this governance review is to increase the size
> of the Board to strengthen its capacity to provide strategic and fiscal
> oversight of ARIN. Increasing the Board size will:
> 1. Increase the range and depth of overlapping skills and governance
> experience on the Board to augment its capability. Specific areas for
> strengthening include cybersecurity, risk management, finance, legal,
> technology and strategic oversight. This will require more than 6
> elected seats at the board table to provide this experience.
>
> 2. Increase diversity of thought on issues impacting the community,
> limit the possibility of board capture, and balance the time commitment
> required of our community volunteers.
>
> 3. Ensure sufficient board capacity to engage in more focused,
> efficient
> governance activities, including participation in these additional
> valuable committees (e.g. Governance, Risk & Cybersecurity, and
> Strategy
> & Foresight) to manage the work and oversight duties of the Board, and
> to take on work that is requested by, and important to, the community
> as
> it evolves.
>
> The budgetary impact will not be material, as the only increased costs
> would be for travel costs involved in attending in-person Board
> meetings. The number of Board members travelling to any RIR meeting
> would not change.
>
> Board Proposal
>
> ARIN will increase the number of elected voting seats of the Board from
> six to nine. The currently available appointed voting seat would be
> removed.
>
> The additional Board seats would be added in a staggered format with
> one
> additional seat for election in each of the upcoming election cycles
> starting with the 2022 election period.
> ARIN seeks community feedback on this proposed increase to the size of
> the Board. This consultation will remain open for 15 days.
>
> Please provide comments to arin-consult at arin.net. You can subscribe to
> this mailing list at: http://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/
> arin-consult.
>
> Discussion on arin-consult at arin.net will close on 15 March 2022.
>
> Regards,
>
> John Curran
> President and CEO
> American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)
>
>
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