When the CEO is past their expiration date - Thoughts from the NRA Trial Part 5
The NRA Board is derelict in their responsibility to either mitigate the risk of an "indispensable" EVP LaPierre or to have a succession plan so he can move on
Testimony from NRA staffers and from the NRA Board Officers that are part of the “Gang of 4”, President Mathews, 1st VP Cotton and 2nd VP Lee, think LaPierre is indispensable and the only reason that NRA is successful in fundraising. Testimony was that the NRA fundraising would be cut in half without LaPierre.
If EVP LaPierre is so indispensable, this is a single point of failure for the Association. The risk that fundraising would be cut in half is more than material - it could jeopardize the Association’s ability to serve its members. This is an issue that competent Board Officers and a Board of Directors must address. Succession Planning for key management is in the control of the Board.
Reading “The High Cost of Poor Succession Planning” in the Harvard Business Review this week, several key points that reflect on the lack of succession planning by the NRA Board. According to PwC’s latest Strategy& “CEO Success” study, “a disturbing 20% of those departing CEOs were forced out, and for the first time in the study’s history, more CEOs were dismissed for ethical lapses than for financial performance or conflicts with their boards.”
Board best practice is to plan succession well before you think you need to. “Succession planning should start at the moment a CEO is appointed.” At best the NRA Board has a “hit by a bus” approach where Executive Director of General Operations Joe Debergalis would become Interim EVP until a replacement is identified, but there is no evidence of planning or grooming anyone to step up into the CEO role.
At the NRA Annual meeting in 2020, John Richardson of the Only Guns and Money Blog summitted a petition to have the NRA Board formalize a Succession Planning process. Three directors rose to oppose the resolution, Don Saba, Joel Friedman, and Kayne Robinson. They said it was not needed. John Richardson noted in his blog that “they missed the whole point.” 1st VP Cotton was chairing the meeting at that point and made the offhand comment that he didn’t see the need for a policy and that the NRA’s approach was working and gave an example that Jason Ouimet was successfully succeeding Chris Cox as head of the NRA-ILA. Hopefully the Board is not delegating the CEO succession plan to Lapierre, which would be an “unacceptable abnegation of duty.”
The Officers and staff of the NRA seem to have tunnel vision or a cult of personality regarding EVP Lapierre’s indispensability. They are conflating the Mission of the NRA in protecting our Second Amendment Rights, the Office of the EVP of the NRA and Lapierre individually and assigning the value of all three of these to LaPierre. As a long time non-profit board member, most donors give because they believe in the mission of the organization. Many donors give because they are asked to donate by a senior executive or the CEO of the organization. The only people that give because of the individual CEO, is from personal relationship with the CEO. I highly doubt that the NRA has ever conducted a survey of donors to assess WHY they give - that would give lie to the indispensability of LaPierre.
The Officers and Board of the NRA seem to believe that EVP LaPierre is indispensable because of his fundraising ability. If he is so indispensable, the Officers and Board of the NRA are derelict in their duty to mitigate that risk to the organization from a single point of failure by having a robust succession plan or by creating redundancy in fundraising responsibility. If he is not so indispensable, it boggles the mind that the Officers and Board continue to maintain and build structures that protect LaPierre rather than, to use his words to CFO Spray, “go in a different direction.”
I’ve been a vocal critic of NRA EVP Wayne Lapierre for his leadership style, and the Board leadership in not properly exercising their fiduciary responsibilities by submitting petitions calling for EVP Lapierre’s resignation as well as the resignation of the Board Officers and members of the executive, audit and finance committees at the 2019 and 2020 NRA Annual meetings. If they have not been removed by the 2021 meeting in Houston, I will do so again.
The 2021 Board election is where the members can have a say and change the culture of the NRA Board and get long overdue new leadership. The only director up for re-election that deserves support is Owen “Buz” Mills as he is publicly supporting Judge Journey’s efforts to reform the NRA. The remaining board candidates deserve no vote.
I ask that you please write me in on the ballot for the 2021 board of directors election when you get you ballot in the next couple of weeks. It will be out in the June/July issue of your NRA magazine.
Write In’s MUST have the information as depicted below. Thank you for your support.
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Back in the 90s, LaPierre hired a firm who was paid by the volume of fundraising mail they sent out, not by the results of such.
It's a good thing NRA has never surveyed donors regarding succession. Most NRA surveys are in name only, and merely clumsily disguised fundraising letters.