I don’t know why my entries have been revolving around employment and leadership the last couple weeks but here I go again….
I happened across a brief article on BoardSource about assessing an organization’s chief executive. As the piece points out, boards go to great pains in the interview process to ensure they are hiring the most capable candidate but rarely set up a formal process by which they can regularly provide feedback.
There are going to be periods of high emotion when the chief executive is either being patted on the back or glared at. Waiting until these times to assess a person is not the most constructive for the chief executive’s development and growth, even if one has a positive impression of them.
I should note that the article I linked to partially consists of instructions of how to set up a review process using the assessment tool BoardSource has developed. I generally try to avoid hawking other peoples services specifically if they aren’t fairly inexpensive. But having sat on many boards and attended meetings of boards of which I was not a member, I can attest to the number of meetings some boards will take parsing the language on simple amendments to the governing rules. It might take years for a board to draw up an assessment instrument.
BoardSource has an assessment tool that can be completed on a print version or online by board members. Their questions at the very least provide a strong starting point if the board feels the need for a more customized questionnaire.
That said, the online tool while time saving and convenient on a number of fronts is also 4 1/2 times more expensive than the print version. Unless it allows 5-10 years of usage, it seems excessively expensive to process the assessment of a single person. Human Resource professionals can probably speak on the reasonableness of the cost better than I. I understand they need to recoup their investment in developing it, but if it were the only option available, I am sure the cost would present an even greater impediment to evaluating a chief executive for many boards.
For most boards, whether they know about the assessment tools or not, it can be easier to promise a chief executive a similar amount of money as a bonus next year if they improve or as a raise if the valued person stays than to invest weeks completing, collecting and collating an evaluation. Given the salaries and bonuses for profit CEOs are granted by their boards, it wouldn’t be surprising if non-profit boards perceived money as the medium by which rewards and severance are conducted.