The business environment is rapidly and fundamentally changing—and directors are expected to keep pace. In response to this state of extreme volatility, the Report of the NACD Blue Ribbon Commission on Building the Strategic-Asset Board explores how boards can position themselves to capably usher their companies into the future by focusing on continuous improvement. At the 2016 NACD Global Board Leaders’ Summit, Commission co-chairs Bonnie Hill, director of California Water Service Group and former Home Depot lead director, and Richard H. Koppes, director of NACD and the Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute and former deputy executive officer of CalPERS, discussed the Commission’s key findings with NACD Director of Strategic Content Development Robyn Bew.
Members of this year’s Blue Ribbon Commission came to a consensus early in their discussions that “board refreshment”—an increasingly popular term in the corporate governance community as various stakeholders turn their attention to board composition and director turnover—is a limiting, and even simplistic, concept. Instead, directors need to figure out how they can make themselves strategic assets to the companies they serve by instilling a continuous-improvement ethos into the culture of the boardroom. Over the course of the conversation, Hill and Koppes suggested that directors consider the composition and functionality of the boards in the following ways:
How do directors’ skills need to align with company strategy? Businesses evolve rapidly, and boards need to respond in kind. Here, directors need to consider how they are keeping abreast of the issues facing their organizations and whether the skills that initially garnered them a seat at the boardroom table still align with the current and future direction of the company. Sometimes this means deciding to leave the board.
Internally, new-director onboarding practices provide an opportunity to communicate about the board’s culture and governance principles, including reinforcing the idea that board service is not a lifetime appointment. Externally, boards can communicate to stakeholders that a director’s departure was in keeping with the board’s governance practices and does not reflect poor service on the director’s part.
What are the board’s processes for continuous improvement? Maintain a pipeline of boardroom talent and have a multi-year succession plan in place so that open board seats can be filled with highly capable candidates. These plans should include designating successors for committee chairs and the independent chair or lead director. For sitting directors, continuing education programs can help to refine or amplify skill sets. Evaluations, including at the individual-director level, are essential tools for continuous improvement when they are conducted regularly and periodically involve an independent third party. They help ensure that the board’s processes are functioning well, enable directors to be more nimble in their own self-improvement, and ultimately fine-tune the board’s strategic contribution to the organization.
How do stakeholder perspectives affect the board? Shareholders—especially institutional investors—are paying closer attention to issues surrounding board composition. Considering that institutional investors read thousands of proxies each year, the onus is on individual boards to effectively communicate how each director makes valuable contributions. More and more leading boards are going beyond the basic biographical information required by the SEC and listing exchanges and providing additional context. In addition, if there is any concern that a director slate could be a point of concern for investors, boards should reach out to those constituencies well in advance of proxy season to explain their position. Should investor dissatisfaction with the board lead to an activist engagement, panelists agreed that, while sometimes both parties ultimately agree to disagree, the board needs to hear out that point of view and seriously consider if their position might add value.
For detailed recommendations on how to enhance your board’s continuous-improvement processes in seven key areas, download the Report of the NACD Blue Ribbon Commission on Building the Strategic-Asset Board. In addition, read this article from the current issue of NACD Directorship magazine for more insights from Bonnie Hill and Richard Koppes on the creation of the report.
