It’s estimated that only 30% of the Fortune 100 conduct board evaluations. A board evaluation is exactly the kind of due diligence that Senator Sarbanes and Congressman Oxley had in mind when they affixed their names to one of the most important American legislation acts of this century. The downside comes when a seriously negative evaluation obligates the board to remove a member, since the evaluation process is essentially an audit.

We’re one of a few leadership consultancies that offer this specialized service and we’ve seen it have positive results by creating more effective board organizations. The process we use is similar to our executive coaching methodology.

Since Sarbanes-Oxley doesn’t require board evaluations, but does hold firms accountable for action if they do conduct evaluations, it’s a tough sell.

But what if boards took a developmental approach to evaluations like most Executive Development Group clients? Why shouldn’t directors have the opportunity to improve their effectiveness with data through work with an executive coach to be better in their interpersonal and collaborative skills?

Marjorie Chan, writing in the Journal of Leadership, Accountability & Ethics (Nov. 2009)  surveyed 16 Fortune 500 and Fortune 100 firms…

“Neither the Sarbanes-Oxley Act nor the exchanges require the performance evaluation and removal of weak directors. It was reported that only 30% of the boards evaluate individual members (Hymowitz & Lublin, 2003). Participants were asked to express their views on this issue. All 17 interviewees agreed that board evaluations, either formal or informal, should be done. All participating organizations, except for two, conduct board evaluations on a regular basis. Three emphasized that the issue revolves around the decision with respect to what evaluation process to use rather than whether or not the boards are evaluated.”

In our experience, helping low-performing directors should be seen as a development opportunity and by developing the director toward improvement, the board demonstrates a high degree of commitment to the shareholders.

In this month’s CLO magazine:

It’s nice to be needed. There’s been an uptick recently in coaching and executive education engagements in South Africa, India, France, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and, ever so gradually, the United States. Organizations are rethinking their business strategies after the financial collapse.

However, ambiguity abounds. There is an obvious tension — as if “nervous” is the new “strategic.” Management wants results quickly, with a heightened financial vigilance and intensified ROI expectations. We’ve watched participants text reviews of our performance during the sessions. One bad day in class and summary dismissal looms. Read full article here.

We’re seeing greater demands on executive education, but the good news is, businesses that are rebounding seem to acknowledge the role of learning.

Lily Kelly-Radford, PhD, joins Executive Development Group as a partner. Kelly-Radford will provide executive coaching and leadership development to clients worldwide, with partners Randall P. White, PhD, and Sandra L. Shullman, PhD.

Kelly-Radford is also owner of LEAP Leadership, Atlanta, a leadership consultancy focused on the entertainment and sport industries. She was previously executive vice president global markets at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL). At CCL, Kelly-Radford led worldwide delivery of executive education in North America, Europe and Asia.

Lily Kelly-Radford, PhD.

“Lily joins us at a time when global and cross-cultural experience is more vital than ever in our international practice,” says Shullman, who is based in Columbus. Kelly-Radford also expands the Greensboro-headquartered Executive Development Group presence in the United States, as she is based in Atlanta.

Kelly-Radford earned a Doctoral degree in clinical psychology from the University of Georgia. She is licensed to practice in four states.

There are some things your best friend should tell you, so we’ll politely challenge a news release from Cambria Consulting, a firm we’ve admired for years. We wished they had asked for some outside feedback before launching their latest instrument.

The release tells us there is a new way to administer 360-degree feedback without all the bother of an objective facilitator. The product’s main benefit is time savings and a kind of batch processing that allows entire teams to be rated at one time, like “mountains of Julianne fries,” just that easy, just that quick.

From the Business Wire release:

“Using Comparative Rating, managers can evaluate their direct reports together instead of one at a time. This ability to visually compare everyone against the same performance factors not only requires 50 to 70 percent less time, it also provides more accurate assessments. Entire teams and organizations can be assessed simultaneously, with higher completion rates and without rater fatigue. This is a significant benefit to today’s busy managers who would otherwise be burdened by the cumbersome single-rater process.”

The new Cambria360 is, no doubt, a spiffy user-friendly tool. Cambria makes great products. But we wonder if the promotional message obfuscates some of the problems inherent in evaluating such large groups at once. Where is the one-on-one evaluation? As coaches and facilitators, we feel left out.

It certainly is ideally suited for the strength-based leadership movement, with its emphasis on fast results.

Speaking of strengths, the Centre for Confidence and Well-Being in Glasgow, Scotland joins us in challenging the notion of ignoring weaknesses with a review of The Perils of Accentuating the Positive. Thanks, Carol!