Hi @cornouws,
Why I’m always the one that gets mentioned?
Myself and many others did not join the meeting the 4 of you decided to organise despite the objections from several people.
Ciao
Paolo
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Hi Michael,
Thanks for your ideas etc.
For now, one remark, and one answer:
This concept is mentioned often and I once (twice?) briefly replied to it.
That distinction may work in people’s agenda, but how does it work in our brains, energies, personalities? Is it reasonable to expect that you work friendly and professional with someone who - in your experience - in a different role, is unfriendly and not respectful towards you or fighting the ideas that you really believe in?
So in the case of people with multiple roles (board<>staff, staff<>board), it is not as easy as: different hour, different role.
Look at it from another angle: if a trustee (in his/her free time) is really unhappy with a boards policy, should she/he be able to fully support and execute in the role as staff? Not?
Or maybe we can suggest (analogue at the ‘solution’ to exclude people affiliated to ecosystem companies from the board) that a member of staff cannot be a trustee? IMO an ugly ‘solution’.
I don’t think that ‘strong restrictions’ for both directors and staff are wise or needed, but just doing as if there are no special relations, is for sure not wise. The situation we are in partly comes from the fact that we have things to learn here.
Good question. If we are serious about looking at the draft with staff - and I certainly want to - the only answer is yes.
Hi @cornouws,
thanks for your answer.
Well, first of all I would consider it unreasonable to be be unfriendly and disrespectful in any role. What I expect is that staff members - like any trustee - can participate in discussions in a civilized manner.
I personally don’t remember having seen unfriendly and discrespectful behavior from staff towards BoD members in the public discussions in the past, so - as mentioned in my previous post - don’t see the need for a Board-Staff policy for this. (And if there’s a problem with inappropriate behavior in public discussions, that should IMHO be regulated in the Code of Conduct or something like that instead that applies for all trustees just the same.)
“Fighting the ideas that you really believe in” sounds quite open to interpretation. I would expect people to be able to work in a friendly and professional way with people that disagree with their perspective in some ways in general. (As mentioned, those disagreements should be handled respectfully.)
For me, @italovignoli’s post Asking your input! - #79 by italovignoli sems to describe the situation and underlying problem pretty well.
I’m not sure I understand this question correctly.
Do you mean a staff member being unhappy with a BoD decision cannot easily work (in their role as staff member) on what the BoD decided? If so, how does preventing the staff member from mentioning that they disagree change the situation? (Will it make them happier to disagree without being able to say so?)
Or is the question whether staff members being unhappy with BoD decisions can continue to be staff members at all?
Again, I don’t see what problem that policy would solve here. If having multiple roles is seen as a core problem, I don’t see how making staff members “trustees with limited free speech” could be a proper solution. (And this is what the direction of the proposal seems to be to me at the moment.)
What is the exact aspect/problem of the mentioned “special relations” that needs to be further regulated in your opinion, and why?
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Tough question. I tend to see this in the frame of functioning of a government. Civil servants have to execute what’s decided in parliament or say a minister. The can be pretty unhappy about it. However it’s beyond their control. It might affect morale, though.
It’s also possible to say: it should be possible to voice unhappiness. The matter is where and how. En public or internally. How often may repeat the unhappiness. Expressing unhappiness doesn’t mean something will change. The staff is able to quite if it’s heavy burden. Or - in the extreme - being fired if unhappiness affecting the performance. And well there are outcomes in between: like a burn-out. A high turnover of staff surely not a good sign.
Same government analogy can be applied to functioning of BoD. It’s bit like a Council of Ministers deciding on a matter. In the Netherlands unity of government is preferred. So the decision is public, but the debate and votes are secret. As long as you’re a Minister you’re supporting the policy set out by the majority, even if you voted (internally) against it. If you’re unable to support the policy in principle in good continuous, even if it’s majority vote, you’re supposed to resign. In principle this is good system, because it promotes an effective functioning board. At the same time signaling something being wrong (someone resigned). The resignation can be done silently, or with extensive motivation.
A board is dysfunctional with a continuous flow of resignations. This might imply a board crisis. It isn’t a sign of stability. For example: CFO, resigns. The next CFO resigns within 6 months after being installed. This surely signals something to the outside world.
Hi,
I think your example / description is not appropriate to TDF, its board and members of staff.
a) The BoD are not elected by a parliament. They have to follow the clear rules of the foundation statutes and the rules applying to foundations / associations in Germany (the home of TDF).
b) The member of staff are no Civil servants, but employees or contractors and at the same time members of the board of trustees. Even as employees (and contractors) they have the right of free speech. This right (fixed in the German constitution) didn’t end at the ‘factory gate’.
c) Modern peoples management abstain from (tight) supervising employees and treat them with respect. Modern employer create a comfortable and helpful environment, the opposite of which some members of the board did for some time.
Regards,
Andreas
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The analogy is far from perfect, I admit. There are similarity’s. A country - like Germany - has an written constitution. The constitution likely instructs parliament to create specific laws about elections. Those constitution and additional laws form the statutes of the country.
Parliament is elected by the citizens who are allowed to vote. Parliament tries to find some majority collation.
The citizens in this case are TDF members, who are able to vote the BoD directly without a parliament representing the voters.
Freedom of speech has a nice ring to it. It’s a legal concept with very specific meaning. In origin about relation between relation of citizens and government. Citizens should be able to criticize the government without repercussions.
Freedom of speech does guarantee you can say or do anything at any place without consequences. It’s nuanced.
This sounds a bit uni-directional. Employer has obligations towards employees, but the same standards don’t apply for employees towards the employer? Employers are also people preferring a good working climate. At least I assume so.
The interesting question that comes to my mind after reading this is what kind of governance/decision-making process the TDF directors suggesting this policy envision for TDF, how much transparency they want and whether - and if so, to what extent and in what form - input and feedback from trustees is desirable for them.
To me, it seems like this is crucial as a basis to understand/discuss whether (and if so how) a Board-Staff policy is needed to introduce new rules.
That’s the whole point. The BoD have to role (burden) to to make controversial decisions. The keep being controversial as such. The goals is also to have an effective board which can execute decisions or a strategy. Instead of being stuck in (internal) squabbles formal procedures. There need to be checks and balances. The question is how the implement it.
Formal procedures might improve things at one end, but they are also bureaucratic and slow. A possible side effect is that people will try to invent loopholes to speed up the process. Until it’s abused.
I actually forgot to mention an essential part. With politics an individual Ministers or the Council of Ministers (represented by Prime Minister) must answer about he their functioning. Parliament must asses the reply given. It can arrange a confidence vote to remove a single Minister or the whole Council of Ministers because of a lack of trust. There will be new election if the trust in the Council of Ministers (as a whole) being gone. There is also a possibility of new elections if there no confidence vote on a single Minister. The Council of Ministers can say we are supporting the Minister unconditionally. If you vote him away, we resign as collective. The idea is to create a balance in power. New elections mean: new parliament & new council of ministers. This also entails that parliament can’t seize control of council of ministers.
The ministers are always in the role. So if Council of Ministers have taken a decision in majority you need to defend it. Also in parliament. You can’t say well in formally decided it, but I was actually against it. If the decisions that critical: resign. It’s a gamble. The resignation triggers questions (parliament). Who can arrange a confidence vote about the matter. If they decide that there still confidence in the remaining board, the process will continue. The dissenting element being removed. In the other case the dissenting opponent being proven right, with new elections as a consequence.
You can’t predict what the result of new elections would be. Citizens have pretty volatile opinion. So parliament might cast a non-confidence vote on the Council of Ministers. Triggering new elections. However the same persons can run for the post again. Forming the same Council of Ministers as before the elections. The will of the people has ultimately decided.
This more basic outline of the idea. Not complete account of all aspects. And the analogy has it flaws; so needs to be adapted to the actual situation.
short note, also here: at LibOCon in Bucharest is has been agreed that phase 1 (say ~this topic) will last until two weeks after the conference, so October 7, to give people an extra opportunity.
This apart from the extra steps - already mentioned - for team members to provide feedback/input.
Cheers,
Cor
Hi Cor,
Who will then write this document/draft?
If the document/draft already exists, who wrote it?
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Hi,
Are you Stephan Ficht?
Yes
(+“Post must be at least 20 characters”)
So do I need to read the whole 91 replies or is there some summary or as Stephan mentioned a draft already? 
Hi Dennis,
there is no draft yet, at least nothing public available.
Regards,
Andreas
There is no draft and no 'at least ’ either.
Hi Dennis,
No, but feel free to step in 
Hi Stephan,
Can you tell me what is the use of asking information that you have, since you was in the meeting in Bucharest where it has been discussed?
If you think it is useful (now) that the information is shared, I suggest that you simply write that. Or?
The info: there is contact with a law firm with relevant expertise, and the plan is that they will get the information from our input, what will be used in the process for drafting, in which also the team will have an extra possibility to provide feedback/input.
This all has been discussed when you were present.
Cor
This is a warped take. You’re implying that people can’t be trusted but the ecosystem partners that have a economic incentive to make LibreOffice less free are more trustworthy. I think you’re being disingeneous here.
Cors as you mentioned earlier in this thread asking for feedback on your English, this post you made comes off as quite rude to Steph.
My summary of the situation:
Cors is being pretentious to others and trying to get Collabora more control over the TDF. Everyone is trying to delay Cors as much as possible until the next board election.
To be a bit more precise: without the board being aware of it, Cor and Thorsten engaged with yet another law firm in mid-September to instruct them to write a draft of the board-staff policy.
This happened despite the reassurances that there might or might not be a policy at the end of the process and despite seeing that the overwhelming majority of the comments toward the proposed policy are negative.
That law firm, which choice has been subjected to numerous objections, has apparently been briefed only by Cor and Thorsten already committing TDF to a substantial and unapproved expenditure.
Only this Monday Cor sent out a vote, clearly shaped by the law firm’s advice, to approve the expenditure he already committed TDF to and to confirm the instruction to the law firm to write the draft. It has been asked to Cor to re-evaluate if the vote made sense knowing about the issues with that law firm and the negative comments from the vast majority of stakeholders at LibOCon. The vote went ahead regardless and sufficient +1 arrived despite the issues.
My impression was that we agreed that no law firms would be involved until the matter is discussed further with all the participants of the meeting, if there is an actual consensus that a policy is needed a draft would be written together with all the participants and at the end of that process the eventual resulting draft would be checked by our legal counsel.
The vote is, IMHO, going in the opposite direction of what it was agreed at LibOCon as it will be crafted by lawyers in a a way that “would make it easier to get support in the community”, changing the name to avoid making sound like a policy and find ways to enforce that “non-policy” in a top-down way but without showing it too much. The negative input already present in board-discuss has not been presented to or taken in consideration by the law firm despite being already present before the briefing.
Overall the briefing and the replies do not show to me that there is an actual intention of openly cooperate in assessing why we need that policy, what events convinced a couple of directors that there is a need for a policy and what are the actual issues it intends to solve.
The elements present in the briefing are related to “members of staff”, “discussions” and “decisions” which leads me to think that the policy is still trying to achieve what I stated here:
The board has not been provided with other elements via email, board-discuss or during the meetings at LibOCon to think otherwise.
Ciao
Paolo