Thank you SO much for your insights. I was particularly struck by your comment that because the NYJL members “know best who we are and what we need” that they very act of turning to outsiders violates not just a general management principle (of dealing with each other first) but an actual identity element of the NYJL.

Also, the idea that what looks right to outsiders is exactly wrong to insiders is important— that’s exactly why people take their disputes to outsiders… they want some kind of ‘objective’ validation of their complaint. But who can actually assess the complaint, without a genuine understanding of the organization’s culture? I imagine that there are times when leaders/managers really need the perspective of outsiders (for example, as a reality check, or for expertise, or moral support). It must be hard for any ‘whistleblower’ to determine whether she is right in taking the argument public, or whether she is right to keep fighting it out inside.

Without any inside info, my sympathies usually lie with the ‘wistleblower’, because I have seen too many instances where organizations were blind to their own mis-management. But your comment offers the important reminder that the very mechanisms that one uses to bring up a problem inside the organization need to be effective in that organization’s culture. Another way to say that is– if you didn’t make the effort to speak in their language, you can’t go complaining that they weren’t listening.
Maybe you can tell us, months later, what’s happened? Anything good come out of this all?

You understand the New York Junior League better than most. Your challenge — and the questions you ask — are really excellent. How much is too much of a deficit? When is it serious? All good.

Those people who take the non-profits board course, however, are members of the community, motsly, not League members. It would be truly distorted, even perverse, to use the League itself as a case study in that setting.

Moreoever, what made the dissent at the League worthy of the TIMES article is that whenever the League has any sort of problem, and we’ve had deficits before — they’re usually no big deal — League leadership solves its problems internally. As a former board member at the NYJL myself, I almost fell off my chair when I saw the Times story. I know Trisha Duvall, the now-departed president at the center of the storm, too, and she just never “got” the culture of the League. She hacked out a deal with Nominating (too complicated to go into) to become president in the first place. In this instance of the deficit and her “fighting” with the Board (outrageous!), she violated one of the most sacred principles of all — she violated League trust by turning to outsiders who don’t understand the organization. That’s the true source of the problem. League women are among the most principled people in the world. There’s such a strong belief among any given board (made up always by the most committeed volunteer members, by the way) that we know best who we are and what we need. Trisha’s handling of this mess — from the enemies she made on her own board to going to the press, for God’s sakes! — is seen as something completely outrageous, and entirely wrong.

What I am saying is that the culture of any organization is its most basic, most “authentic” self. You cannot divorce the culture of the League from this financial issue its currently facing, or any other issues, and actually think you understand the organization better or that your scrutiny is a good thing. Trisha may be right in terms of taking a hard look at the org’s finances, and her actions may look right to the outside world looking in, but she has handled this in a way that those in the League see as completely wrong — she has violated trusts, alienated the very people she needs to solve the problem, and made it impossible for herself to continue, not to mention a million other things that are just so wrong in terms of the League’s culture and its sense of “self.” Trisha can never be forgiven, nor will she be. The NYJL may have had some money problems, which are entirely fixable given the wealth of our members, but Trisha created a scandal.