The Board Book : Making Your Corporate Board a Strategic Force in Your Company's Success

This is a guide to recruiting and managing high-calibre corporate boards. It focuses on ten common mistakes made in assembling boards, as well as ten steps that will help improve a board and fast-track a company's success. Pt. I. The Case For Strategic Boards -- 1. The Board Basics -- 2. Strategic Recruiting -- Pt. Ii. The Conflicts That Compromise A Board -- 3. Insiders -- 4. Conflicts -- 5. Family -- 6. Cronyism -- 7. The Money -- 8. Diversity -- Pt. Iii. Using Your Board Strategically -- 9. Information Flow -- 10. The Role Of The Directors -- Value Added -- 11. Empowering The Board -- Board Leadership -- Pt. Iv. Legal Issues And The Future -- 12. Director Liability -- 13. The Future Of The Strategic Board -- App. 1. Requirements Of Statutory Vs. Advisory Boards -- App. 2. Actions Requiring The Board Of Directors' Approval -- App. 3. Sample Corporate Governance Guidelines (nuevo Energy) -- App. 4. Sample Corporate Governance Guidelines (caterpillar) -- App. 5. Fortune 500 Companies Without Women Directors -- App. 6. Sample Form For Director's Evaluation Of Ceo -- App. 7. Sample Form For Board Evaluation -- App. 8. Sample Form For Board Of Directors Self-assessment -- App. 9. Board Governance Resource List. Susan F. Shultz. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Annotation For nepotism, lethargy, and plain old misguidance, few corporate entities can top the board of directors. And that's a shame, because engaged, knowledgeable boards can make a world of difference, setting an organization's strategic direction, infusing it with valuable expertise, and rendering the company attractive to investors. The Board Book is the most succinct, reader-friendly guide available to recruiting and managing on-track, top-notch corporate boards -- the kind that serve as pivotal success factors for companies of every size. Packed with both real-life success and horror stories, this fast-paced book explains the 11 guiding principles for transforming a board, exploring issues such as: -- Using insiders, consultants, and friends on a board-- Interlocking directorships -- Conflicts of interest-- Diversity -- Information flow-- Complacency -- Board overload-- Groupthink -- Turnover, and more "The Board Book is the most practical, reader-friendly guide available to recruiting and managing on-track, top-notch corporate boards - the kind that serve as pivotal success factors for every kind of company, public or private, large or small.". "The author's guidance is backed up by research and hundreds of interviews - information that everyone in business can use: senior executives get the tools to create and sustain effective boards; management gets a clear understanding of good corporate governance; directors get essential information on how to optimize their roles; employees get an accurate reading on the health of their company; and investors get a critical benchmark for evaluating a company."--BOOK JACKET.