Assessment

The assessment of current Board members can be done in various ways:

• Chat with the Chairperson
• Chat with the Governance Committee
• Director self-assessment
• Aggregated results to give Board profiles
• Qualitative peer assessment

The assessment of a Board member before appointment should consider the following matters:

• Relate the profile to the goals of the organization and Board performance criteria
• Use an external search process to complement the probable likely suspects known to the Board
• Consider the appointment term
• Discuss all relevant information prior to the appointment
• Current Board members should meet the final candidate to ensure they are comfortable that the new member will contribute the skills knowledge and experience sought in a team-like manner
• Give a thorough induction process.

The assessment of the Board as a whole could be undertaken by four key ways:

• Chat with the Chairperson
• Yes/no questionnaire
• Grading questionnaire
• Written questionnaire

Introducing an effective way of assessing the Board involves implementation over time, gaining commitment, careful preparation, and deciding the issues to be covered by the Board assessment.

You also need to define measures of performance for both the organization and the Board, and decide how you will communicate performance, implement changes, and review the whole process.

The Board should the assess the Chief Executive Officer, because the CEO is responsible to the Board as a whole, not just to the Chairperson.

It should be part of a policy framework, based on objective performance criteria, and reviewed as part of an organization and Board performance review. It should also be linked to a remuneration policy that reflects objective performance.

The purpose of the performance evaluation is to align the long-term interests of the CEO with the long-term interests of the organization. This would require a three stage process of:

1. The Board setting goals for/with the CEO
2. Monitoring the performance of the organization against the goals
3. Responding to the difference between expected and actual outcomes

Performance measures should be: valid, verifiable, controllable, global, and communicable.