In Focus: The CEO and Board
For this month’s ‘In Focus’ segment we’ve rounded up content from across the web on the critical relationship and responsibilities between the Board and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
The CEO & Board (via Mills Oakley Lawyers | @MillsOakley)
The relationship between the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and the Board of Directors is the most crucial in an organisation, and the state of this relationship has the greatest influence on organisational success. For the CEO-Board relationship to work well, it must be one of negotiation, consideration and understanding of the role and perspective of the other. The CEO and the Board must also recognise and respect the fact that they play separate and distinguishable roles, and must work together in order to achieve organisational goals. Read article.
CEO Succession Planning (via Talent Intelligence | @Talent_Intel)
Directors generally understand the importance of succession planning and often rank succession planning as one of the top three agenda items for the board. Yet many boards rate themselves poorly when it comes to planning for a change of CEO. This post sets out three succession planning best practices that boards can adopt to position themselves for growth and business continuity. Read article.
Hiring and Appointing the CEO (via Ivey Business Journal | @iveybusiness)
Identifying and recruiting the next CEO are fraught with risk. But while the risks are known, they can also be managed, so that in the end, the board and its search committee feel strongly that the individual they have chosen will prove to be the right choice. This article is worth book marking and steps through the entire CEO selection and recruitment process: predicting performance; profiling the next CEO; conducting the search; checking references; and on-boarding the new CEO. Read article.
Reviewing and Assessing the CEO (via Forbes | @Forbes)
Boards are not particularly strong in giving formal feedback due to the lack of clear agreement on what the CEO should actually be doing. This is compounded by the fact that few board members have actual experience in the CEO role. In order to solve the problem of not knowing how to evaluate a CEO, the following scorecard process can be adopted by any board and corresponds to what the author thinks are the key responsibilities of a CEO. Its simple format covers six areas, and grades the CEO from A to F in each category. Read article.
Dismissing the CEO (via Bates Wells Braithwaite | @BWBllp)
Inevitably there are times when the relationship between a CEO and the Board breaks down. The situation either has to be actively managed to restore the relationship, or the parties need to cut their losses and (usually) the CEO must go. This article outlines important considerations around dismissing the CEO – such as unfair dismissal, breach of contract, and discrimination – along with practical tips to adopt around maintaining open communication between the board and CEO and how to appropriately dismiss the CEO should it come to that. Read article.