Services
Board Education
Improve Board Leadership
Do your directors perform or simply comply? Too many boards monitor the details of compliance but gloss over the key decisions that will define the company’s future success.
Perceptive directors and CEOs sense the tension. They recognize that just as past practices have failed them, recent attempts to improve have not always succeeded either. To recruit new directors and quell shareholder unrest, directors need to understand their roles better and go beyond activity and conformity to goal realization.
Stellar boards remain committed to both formal and informal self-evaluation—always dedicated to seeing an unvarnished view of themselves. Stellar boards don’t sweep issues under the proverbial rug, nor do they leap to blame when things go wrong. We describe these high performing boards as mature. They share observable and changeable characteristics.
We can help your board in the following ways:
- Enhance communication among the CEO, directors, stakeholders, and investors
- Improve CEO and directors’ performance
- Generate greater value from your committees
- Keep everyone focused on strategic decisions
- Realize directors’ collective and individual potential
Director Evaluation:
Promote Professional Standards
Some companies conduct an evaluation of their directors annually. However, the assessment produces a score card, not necessarily meaningful feedback or change. For other organizations, a misconception exists that this kind of assessment needs to occur only when the board faces a crisis, dysfunctional relationships, or a problematic director.
We offer an alternative. Our director evaluations serve as a valuable, dispassionate review of the strengths and improvement opportunities from the vantage point of the directors themselves.
We will:
- Assess directors’ financial acumen, M&A expertise, industry knowledge & risk management capability
- Improve interpersonal interactions
- Enhance the contributions of individual directors
- Promote high professional standards for director performance
- Align expectations for the entire board
- Leverage the strengths and mitigate the weaknesses of individual directors
CEO Evaluation:
Align the CEO’s Vision with That of the Board
CEO performance is integral to the prosperity of any organization. Development and retention of the right CEO—one who leads the organization toward its strategic and tactical goals—defines two of the primary responsibilities of the Board of Directors.
Too often CEOs are unaware of how directors perceive their performance as feedback has been rare or non-developmental.
Improve CEO performance, enhance organizational effectiveness and develop a better relationship with the CEO with timely, balanced, consistent and systematic feedback.
The board, organization, and CEO will benefit in these ways:
- When they receive candid, anonymous feedback about how to leverage strengths, mitigate weaknesses, and effectively address expectations, CEOs can dramatically improve their performance
- Boards can improve their performance when the board chair has information about the directors’ perception of the CEO, which can influence compensation and other major decisions.
- Enhanced communication between the CEO and directors will clarify roles and define spheres of responsibility.
- The CEO can better know how to drive the success and growth of the business.
CEO Advisor
Senior leaders tell us that having a trusted advisor goes beyond coaching and professional development—it’s an insurance policy and a secret weapon. It gives CEOs access to expert counsel so they can tackle the most critical decisions and seize emerging opportunities.
With us as a sounding board, our best clients more quickly get to the core of unfamiliar problems, determine trends, and formulate solutions. When the stakes are the highest and the decisions the most critical, making the tough calls quickly makes sense and saves dollars.
We can help you as:
- A sounding board for strategic and tactical decisions
- An evaluator of those decisions
- An idea and technique source
- A devil’s advocate on tough calls
- An objective evaluator of strategy and talent decisions
- A support system for accountability
“Your step-by-step process helped me concentrate on accomplishing results, instead of being distracted by personalities or hidden agendas. I think this process would be valuable to any individual leader or executive team that is experiencing roadblocks. This process required me to diffuse conflict so that the stakeholders could find a workable solution.”
Nelson Grumney, President, Neland Investment Management
