Transcript

ALISON:

As CEO and chair in a relatively small organisation, working together is very important. We have to trust each other. We have to be honest with each other. And we have to present a united front to the trustees and to the staff group in order to move the organisation forward. It's a form of shared leadership, really. I think if a chair chose to interfere too much, it could be very difficult, which is why you need to have that trust in collaborative working and be clear what each person's role is.

JOHN:

Yeah, I think it's most important that the chair and chief exec do work together. The danger in many cases is that chairs might want to interfere and micro-manage the organisation. That isn't their role. My role is a supporter of the chief exec in carrying forward the aims of the society for the good of the children and their parents, their adoptive parents.

I view my role-- perhaps it's a bit of a hackneyed phrase, the critical friend, so that I don't necessarily, wouldn't necessarily, rubber stamp everything which Alison wanted. And if there were times of conflict, we will discuss them and discuss the best way forward.

ALISON:

I think sometimes it is challenging to decide how much to inform the chair of trustees and how much is just dealt with on a day-to-day basis. I think it’s good to keep the chair informed of some of the day-to-day stuff, because I think it gives a flavour of the kind of challenges that I'm dealing with, and also some of the joy of it.

So for example, when we've placed a group of children or we've seen a particular child grow and develop, telling those nice stories I think is also very important. Because it keeps the child central in everything that we do.

JOHN:

I think probably because I've been involved working in local government and various policy issues with central government, the unexpected is so expected that I'm used to dealing with it. Obviously, if something unexpected cropped up, Alison would let me know and I would use my experience to work through with Alison the answer to the problem.

ALISON:

I think an example of dealing with the unexpected was several court rulings a couple of years ago where the plans for adoption were questioned by some fairly eminent judges. We were in the middle of expansion, and a lot of the voluntary adoption agencies were expanding because there was increased demand for adoption placements. And suddenly it dropped by 50 per cent.

We are now through the challenges of that. And John has worked-- he supported me through all of that. And we're now at the point where we can look forward as an organisation, that the number of children we're placing has increased significantly. Financially, we are in a much better position than we were. But I believe that it's the relationship between the chief executive and chair of trustees that's been key in managing what was a very difficult period of time and will set us well for going forward in the future.