Self-assessment of the board is a crucial management practice that top-performing boards use to ensure long-term governance. It requires board members to take a step back and critically reflect on their effectiveness. This allows the board to tackle areas that could become major sources of discontent and tension.
There are a variety of ways to conduct a self-assessment for your board from surveys and interviews to guided discussions. The best approach will depend on the size of your board, the resources available and the amount of depth you’d like to go into the assessment.
If you choose to conduct the assessment, be sure to define your objectives for the assessment. Do you wish to improve accountability, improve governance, or align governance with the goals of your organization? Once you’ve determined this, you can then choose an evaluation tool.
Some tools allow you to compare your results with other health facilities and hospitals and others focus exclusively on your company’s governance practices. It’s important to make sure that the tools you choose are unbiased and don’t discriminate against directors. This will create a space where honest feedback can be offered.
Many boards also utilize a peer review process that requires board members to assess their colleagues as directors. This can be a beneficial and productive exercise, but it’s vital that the process remains private. Some directors might be reluctant to criticize a member of the board for fear of repercussions. In this scenario it is typically better to let the facilitator go through the responses to determine which insights are important to be shared with the board.
