The Top Boards Do These Four Things Differently

How do you rate a board?

One metric is to look at how the company performs, of course. But another common metric is to ask the board to rate itself in terms of how it operates.

Russell Reynolds Associates combined both of these sets of data to sum up the results of a recent survey of 750 board directors. Out of this effort, they created a list of “Gold Medal Boards” that both rate themselves highly and oversee high-performing companies.

One clear takeaway from this exercise is that Gold Medal Boards don’t necessarily spend the majority of their time on financial statements and audit reports. Instead, they focus on strategic planning and forward-looking strategies.

This emphasis can be directly charted in terms of meeting agendas. Gold Medal Boards were likely to list things like strategic planning, oversight on major transactions, and CEO and management succession planning as high-level agenda items.

While company leaders are making critical decisions about how to operate and lead right now in the time of #covid19, more than ever, it’s up to boards to have a long view.

You can read the original HBR article here.