How often a board should review its performance depends on a range of factors. Whilst the starting point is generally any regulatory requirement, there are also a range of other factors to consider when thinking about the right review and performance improvement cycle.
Daily question
As with any profession, there are good board review consultants and those that are less effective. Engaging someone who has both depth and breadth of experience
An advisory board is very different to a legal board of directors. Whilst a legal board of directors has to meet certain requirements and standards imposed by legislation, regulation and contemporary practice, an advisory board has no such constraints
In almost all cases, the answer to this question is yes. The board impacts the business through the management team. The board does not govern the organisation in isolation. The management team bring important perspective about the impact of the board throughout the organisation. This in and of itself is a powerful reason to include them
The simple answer to this question is no. An effective board review requires the participation and ownership of the chair
An effective board review looks forward, drives action and has buy-in from stakeholders. Your evaluation process will fail to achieve its goals if one or more of these six factors are at play.
Board reviews are a critically important part of running an effective board. However, the process is not valuable in and of itself. The only benefit comes through improved performance of the board, and hence the organisation. The board is always time constrained, so it is possible for a review to take up too much time and too many resources relative to other priorities.
When thinking about evaluating your board, there’s a range of alternatives. Most of these involve some combination of online surveys and
An easy trap for inexperienced chairs is to measure the success of a board review based on a report or discussion. Instead, the best measure is typically tracking the actions that are taken as a result of the review.
Board reviews can be quite broad, covering a wide range of topics. Whilst the scope may change depending on the circumstances facing the board and organisation, at a base level there are three key areas that should be covered in every process