Continuous process improvement in the boardroom.

• Author: Spanberger, Peter G.
• Position: BOARD DYNAMICS

Typically boards conduct a yearly assessment. This can involve a review of the entire board's functioning, individual board member functioning, or both. The results are discussed for a short period of time and then the board gets back to the content of its work. The board has thus fulfilled a legal requirement. Often little if any behavior change happens and the following year another small impact process is done.

The lack of impact's partially due to the fact that a discrete one-time event was used in an attempt to drive behavior change. Complex behaviors, such as those required in the boardroom, are best learned and improved in an incremental manner across time.

Continuous process improvement is one such incremental methodology. It is a way of operating that has been shown to be highly successful in improving, in an incremental way, many processes and functions within corporations. This concept has not been typically applied to board processes. However, boards may be able to significantly improve their functioning by using the principles of continuous process improvement.

There are a number of concrete steps that a board can take in order to apply these principles to its own functioning.

The board can routinely discuss its own process at the end of each meeting. It is important that this be done immediately while all the behavior patterns are fresh in everybody's mind. It is not necessary to devote large amounts of time to these discussions. A quick 10 or 15 minute debrief is elf that is needed.

Boards can acknowledge behaviors that were functional. This is a powerful way to reinforce and be educational about the specific positive behaviors that drive effective board functioning.

One board identified their ability to advance the thinking of management about growing the business. The board focused on specific examples of how this was done. This discussion was highly reinforcing and encouraged everybody to continue to manifest these behaviors. It was also educational about the specific ways in which a board can advance the thinking of management. Those board members who were less skilled in this regard learned quite a bit about how to develop this capability.

Such discussions can also focus on areas in need of improvement. This can be done in a comfortable and nonpersonal way, but still identify behaviors that need to be eliminated or mitigated. One board identified poor listening skills as a behavior pattern that needed improvement. The...