Managing Without Profit: Leadership, Management and Governance of Third Sector Organisations, by Mike Hudson, Directory of Social Change, £24.95
The sky is dark with black swans coming home to roost. The masters of the universe are disgraced. The public sector, more vital than ever, is strangled with targets and drowning in process rather than progress. Fortunately, social enterprises are growing exponentially. The third sector already counts for almost 12% of GDP and has a disproportionate influence on policy.
We desperately need successful value-driven enterprises. But values and passion are not enough. Third sector organisations need leadership, management and governance: the focus of this latest edition of Mike Hudson's authoritative book.
Public sector mastery of policy and process and private sector single bottom line are not the answer, he writes: there are classic and distinctive features of third sector management. As Hudson points out in his characteristically low-key way, when both public and private sector people join third sector boards "it is likely that some of their assumptions will have to change". You can say that again! We all know third sector organisations lost in mission drift, rudderless with bored boards and cluttered with comatose councillors who think it's another council committee. And at the other end of the table, the corporate boys fiddle restlessly with their Blackberrys, impatient for action, for decisions.
Hudson is no "gonzo journalist" and I would have enjoyed more colour from the frontlines and battlefields. Mercifully, in a world brought to its knees with business drivel (going forward, anyone?) he writes clearly and concisely - a joy. This book should be compulsory reading for new board members and enjoy a prominent place on the bookshelves of third sector chief executives - alongside Roget and the headache pills.
Walter Menzies is chief executive of the Mersey Basin Campaign and a non-executive director of Waterwise
From Bubb's Blog
From Whitehall Watch
