The primary role of the board of directors is value addition. Every board member must take self-reflection and, ask “which value do I bring on this company’s board?”
At the end of every board meeting, the board chair must always ask his board: which value did we add today? Did members just waste the time and money in sitting allowances or the meeting added value? Which value?
Read: Is your board empowering you?
Each board member must answer the following:
- Why do I deserve a sit on this table? What are your specific roles and responsibilities? If you are a lawyer, how do you add value? For each agenda item do you provide a legal opinion with informed analysis of legal implications for each option available? How much legal costs have your presence on the board saved the organization? Do you challenge the company lawyers so that they do more to add value?
- How organized is the board to be self-assessments during a crisis? Do you have clear communication protocols and strong mechanisms of ‘micro-monitoring’ to stay updated and avoid surprises?
- How do you evaluate the effectiveness of the board members? Does the board conduct self-assessments to evaluate its performance? What is the basis for the self-evaluation? Does the board have a clear scorecard against which it evaluates its performance?
- What are the top 4 measures of your board effectiveness?
Answering the above questions will improve the value you add on the board.
Copyright Mustapha B Mugisa, 2019. All rights reserved.
