This post over on the 'We've always done it that way' blog (a blog focussed on what the authors think needs to change in associations / organisations) addresses the topic of young people on organisations boards.

I'm not entirely sure how 'young' the authors are referring to (as it might seem in the context of many organisational boards that anyone under 50 can be called relatively young...) - but they suggest that:

Creating a token slot for a young person will get you just that: a person who will be discounted from the start because they are a token to diversity. Fundamentally changing your recruitment practices to identify leadership candidates throughout the membership will provide a more diverse array of candidates and most likely find some leaders you would never have known about.

To get better leaders you need to become a better recruiter.

This raises a number of questions for me:

• Should any plans we develop to engage young people to take part in board level structures be all about seeking out young leaders or is our focus on young stakeholders?

and following from that

• If young people would be participating on a board as stakeholders, but wider board members are there as leaders - what does that do to young peoples role within the board or to their voting rights etc?

Or

• If young people are there as leaders - will we always end up only enabling the already articulate 'leadership candidates'? Is there anything wrong with this in the board context where strong leadership is needed?

Interestingly, whilst I think the idea that creating one reserved space for a young person on the board of an organisation may be tokenstic, my intuitions suggest that creating 4 or 5 spaces reserved for young people would feel less like tokenism... perhaps because in this case the board would be handing real power to younger voices, instead of just bringing in one younger voice whose insight is far too easily ignored...