Director effectiveness

Organisations spend a significant amount of time, money and effort developing and appraising the performance of their CEO and the senior leadership team but not many invest resources in the growth and development of their directors.

Organisations that develop and appraise their directors testify to the importance of such action and the significant return they achieve on that investment.

A simple, unobtrusive approach

Our Director Effectiveness Survey uses a special online data collection technology that has been designed to be unobtrusive and to be completed in one web based survey by each participant over the web in less than 30 minutes.

The survey can also be completed by executives that regularly attend board meetings and who therefor know the directors well. They can rate the attributes of each and provide comments in relation to their strengths and opportunities for improvement or just provide comments without a rating. Either way, this will be of significant additional benefit to each director.

Individual reports as well as a group report

Individual reports show each director’s rating of themselves as well as the rating of each director by others. It also shows how the rating of each director by others is compared to the rating by others of all directors. This perspective highlights the perceptions of the director’s strengths relative to other directors.

The written responses add context and further insights to the numerical data included in each report.

A separate group report shows the average results for all directors, which identifies those issues that the directors excels at overall and those issues where they can most improve as a group.

Debrief of results

Much of the value of the process is derived from the feedback process where directors are encouraged to determine what the ratings and comments of peers are saying to them in terms of their main strengths and where their contribution to the board can be enhanced. The process includes matching up their views with the views of the Chair and/or an expert facilitator and helping them develop a plan to enhance their performance.

Our Director Effectiveness Framework

Our comprehensive (28 survey items) and short form Director Effectiveness Survey (14 survey items) uses the following framework:

• Personal attributes (highly reliable, high integrity and ethics, independence of mind, sound judgement, thorough, relates well to others)
• Teamwork (constructive in a team, adds new perspectives, good group problem solver, presents views well, deals well with conflict, fully supports decisions)
• Leadership (sets a good example, insists on high standards, displays strategic thinking, can be decisive, influences direction and purpose, good ambassador)
• Oversight (understands oversight versus management, financially literate, understand legal duties, oversights risks, understands the business, its major challenges and drives of success)