Organization 21C: Someday All Organizations Will Lead This Way

Accountability for Performance: Formally Evaluating the Board and Its Directors

It is common practice for boards to evaluate their CEO (over 70% do it), but it is not common practice for boards to evaluate themselves and their members. This is simply no longer acceptable. It undermines the credibility of boards, not to mention ignoring what is known about creating effective groups and individual performance.

One solution is to utilize a formal, rigorous self-evaluation of the board. This can result in significant improvements, particularly when directors find they have common concerns that no one has raised publicly. But this approach can itself create problems given the desire of the board members to look and feel effective. A better alternative ...