Building Better Boards: A Blueprint for Effective Governance.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Brief Article

Building Better Boards: A Blueprint for Effective Governance. By David A. Nadler, Beverly A. Behan and Mark B. Nadler. Jossey-Bass, 301 pages. $39.95.

This timely and thoughtful book opens with a wry anecdote about what happened when Felix Rohatyn, the New York financial guru, joined the board of Avis in the 1960s. He was greeted by the CEO with the observation that "a really good board is one that only reduces the efficiency of the company by 20 percent."

Needless to say, times have changed. The toppling or retirement of a host of "imperial CEOs"--think of General Electric's Jack Welch, Disney's Michael Eisner or AIG's Maurice "Hank" Greenberg--and the regulatory changes wrenching boards toward independence have truly put U.S. corporate boards in an altered state.

The authors, executives at Mercer Delta Consulting (where David Nadler is chairman and CEO), argue for a new model that eschews previous roles as a lapdog or watchdog of management, and instead "strike[s] the right balance between contention and collaboration." In the process, they...