Joys aplenty.

• Author: Kristie, James
• Position: Editor's Note - Editorial

IN THEIR REPORT on the overhaul underway in director compensation (see page 49), Sibson Consulting's Judy Canavan and Donald Gallo identify what they call a "potentially widening shortfall between the personal rewards of directorship and the demands of board service." Such a gap has serious ramifications: Talented executives may eschew board duty, fearful that there will be nothing to be gained (and everything to be lost) by accepting a board invitation. To borrow the phrase of a past DIRECTORS & BOARDS author, it appears that, even with upward monetary adjustments, there is diminishing opportunity to "have fun while you fiduce."

That author was the late, great Robert K. Mueller. This governance guru, a former chairman of Arthur D. Little Inc. who died in 1999, wrote a classic article for DIRECTORS & BOARDS in 1986 entitled "The Joys of Directorship." With all the gloom that has attached itself to the role of corporate director, this article is a perfect antidote--reminding one anew of "directorship's good side."

These are some of the "joys," in his own inimitable terminology, that Bob Mueller identifies and promotes: the Exhilaration of Challenge; the Service Ethic; Eliteness Motivation; the Ethical Algorithm ("the attraction for a director is the role he or she can play in clarifying what constitutes human welfare"); the Celebrity Role; the Ego Factor; the Marching and Chowder Society; Team Play; Networking; and, lastly on Bob's list, Perks and Pay. Here is Bob on this latter item, and indeed this is how he concludes his seminal advisory:

"While such perks may give a hedonic tone to board service, they are...