The Savvy Director Blog

Ensuring that the annual operating budget is aligned with the strategic plan was one of my greatest takeaways when I was enduring ‘audit committee weekend’ as part of a corporate director certification program many years ago.

I learned that many of the best questions for management come from non-financial people like me around the board table. Why would that be?

While I believe the audit partners teaching that program module wanted to get the non-financial people excited about being on finan...

I’m often asked about CEO evaluations. I’ve helped boards with everything from developing a process, to designing the method, to gathering and analyzing information, and even communicating the results.

I’m a strong proponent of conducting an annual CEO evaluation. For one thing, it’s the board’s job to do so. The board-CEO relationship is an important one and an effective evaluation process can help strengthen it.

It’s hard for any CEO to get honest feedback. Even in organizations where sta...

We say it all the time – ‘Preparation is the key to success in the boardroom.’ That’s why we call our company DirectorPrep. That’s why our tagline is ‘Ready for your board meeting?’

And that’s why we developed the PREP Framework that provides individual directors with a consistent, repeatable process to prepare for board meetings. We want to support directors to be ready for their board meeting every time. (Visit the PREP for Success page on our website to download the PREP Framework.)

Bein...

Here’s a recent email from a DirectorPrep member: “I am serving on a board that does not have much understanding of risk management. What suggestions would you have to get the discussion going?”

That’s a great question from a risk instigator – a board director who’s looking to find a way to push their risk management rock up a hill when their fellow directors don’t see much value in having the discussion.

That’s okay. It won’t be the last time directors view risk management as nothing more ...

For the modern board director, using AI to help prepare for board meetings allows you to do two things at once.

First, you’ll increase your comfort level with generative AI. Experts advise board directors to increase their awareness and knowledge of AI. One way to start is to get hands-on with an AI tool that suits your own purposes.

Second, you can turbo charge your meeting PREP, making the whole process faster, easier, and more robust.

Ready for Your Board Meeting?

Modern directors ne...

If your board is typical, there’s time set aside in the board calendar to discuss strategy – at least I hope there is! Usually, there’s an offsite strategic planning session every few years, maybe an annual board retreat that includes a strategy update, and hopefully there is time allocated on most meeting agendas to check in on progress against the strategic plan.

Over the years I’ve participated in quite a few strategic planning sessions. The board and senior management get together to deci...

In the last couple of weeks, DirectorPrep has released ChatDPQ™, our brand new AI-powered resource, custom-designed for board directors like you and me. It’s a tool that provides easy, time-saving access to high-quality insights on anything to do with boards and board work. ChatDPQ replaces the DirectorPrep Questions App (DQA) and, just like the DQA, it’s available exclusively to DirectorPrep members.

I learned from DirectorPrep co-founder Dave Jaworski that ChatDPQ is built around Microsoft’...

This is the third of three articles on the topic of human capital. The first, Overseeing “Our Greatest Asset”, dealt with the board’s role in Human Capital Management and the second, The Talent-Savvy Board, dealt with Talent Management. In this article we explore the importance of organizational culture.

An organization’s culture can make or break a brilliant strategy and build or damage the careers of experienced executives. A positive culture that aligns well with strategy can produce innov...