Jim Brown
Founding Partner
Author of The Imperfect CEO and The Imperfect Board Member, Jim has helped leaders build healthy organizations for 30+ years.
Rethinking Board Evaluation: Beyond Scores to Governance Improvement
Most boards complete an annual evaluation and still govern the same way the following year. Directors fill out the survey. The results are summarized. A report is reviewed. And then, in many cases, the board continues to function almost exactly as it did before.
This isn’t an argument against board evaluation. Thoughtful assessment can be one of the most valuable tools available to a board. Yet many evaluations generate information without helping directors determine where they should focus their energy for greater effectiveness. As a result, boards often spend more time discussing scores and reports than discussing what they should do next.
That doesn’t mean the board is careless. Boards generally take evaluation seriously. They want to improve. They want to fulfill their responsibilities well. They want assurance that they’re adding value.
The problem is that many board evaluations are better at producing information than producing insight. They tell boards what directors reported, but not always what the board should understand, discuss, prioritize, and change. The risk is that the annual evaluation becomes a ritual of reassurance instead of a mechanism for improvement.
Part of the challenge begins with the language itself. The word evaluation implies judgment. We evaluate employees, students, products, and performance against established standards. An evaluation produces a score, a ranking, or a verdict. The natural question that follows is, “How did we do?”
For boards, a more useful question is, “What are we able to see now that we didn’t see before?”
That’s why we prefer the term assessment. If a board rethinks board evaluation and comes at it with the goal to assess, learn, and make adjustments, they can avoid the traps boards so commonly fall into.
First, let’s look at four traps help explain why many board evaluations fail to produce the improvement boards are seeking. After that, we’ll point to what boards can do instead.
Trap #1: Confusing Scores with Understanding
One of the most common traps in board evaluation is assuming that a score creates understanding. Directors receive the report and naturally look for the numbers. Did we score well? Are there areas of concern? What do the green, yellow, and red indicators tell us?
These are reasonable questions, but they can lead boards to draw conclusions too quickly. Scores summarize opinions. They don’t explain the assumptions, experiences, concerns, or blind spots behind them.
A board may receive strong ratings and conclude it is performing well. The danger is not the score itself but the assumption that the conversation is over. Every board has opportunities to strengthen its governance practices, sharpen its oversight, and improve the quality of its discussions. A strong score shouldn’t signal the end of the conversation. It should prompt a deeper one.
The same challenge appears when reports rely heavily on visual indicators. If everything appears green, directors may assume there’s little work to do. If an area appears red, the discussion may shift immediately to solutions before the board has fully understood the issue. In either case, the board risks moving too quickly from information to conclusions.
The difficulty is that scores tell us what people reported. They do not tell us why.
Trap #2: Confusing Comparison with Progress
Once directors have reviewed the scores, many boards move immediately to comparison. How does this year’s score compare to last year’s? How do we compare to other boards? Are our trends moving in the right direction?
Comparisons can provide useful context, but they can also distract attention from the true purpose of assessment.
A board’s objective is not to achieve a higher score than another board. Nor is its objective simply to improve a number from last year’s report. The objective is to become more effective at fulfilling its governance responsibilities.
A board could improve a score while making little meaningful progress. Conversely, a board could maintain similar scores while making significant advances in the quality of its governance discussions, oversight, and decision-making. Effective boards spend less time debating whether a score is good or bad and more time discussing what the results suggest about future priorities.
The most important question is not, “Are we better than before?” It is, “Where should we focus our attention to become more effective in the future?”
Trap #3: Confusing Agreement with Understanding
Many boards assume that alignment is always desirable. Certainly, boards should strive for unity when decisions are made. However, one of the most valuable aspects of assessment is often the discovery that directors do not see the board in the same way.
In our experience, while average scores can be a useful starting point, the most valuable information in an assessment is often found in the differences behind the scores.
One director may believe strategic oversight is a significant strength while another believes the board spends too much time discussing operational matters. One director may feel succession planning is receiving appropriate attention while another sees considerable risk. One director may believe management provides excellent information while another believes important information is missing. Each director might choose the same rating, but for different reasons. Apparent agreement can hide very different interpretations.
The purpose of assessment is not to determine who is right. The purpose is to understand why thoughtful and committed directors have arrived at different conclusions. What experiences are shaping their perspectives? What assumptions are influencing their thinking? What information do some directors possess that others may not?
When boards take the time to explore these questions, they often uncover insights that would never emerge from reviewing averages alone. In many cases, the most productive board conversations begin when directors realize they are not seeing the same reality.
Trap #4: Confusing Reports with Improvement
Too often, the assessment process ends when the report is delivered. Directors review the findings, nod at results they expected to see, identify a few observations, and move on. The report is treated as the destination rather than the starting point.
No report has ever improved a board.
No score has ever improved a board.
Boards improve when directors use the information to engage in thoughtful conversation, challenge assumptions, learn from one another, and commit to meaningful action. The report merely provides the raw material for that process.
This is why the discussion that follows the assessment is often more important than the assessment itself. The survey gathers perspectives. The report organizes information. The board conversation creates understanding. Without that conversation, directors may know what people reported, but they have not yet developed a shared understanding of what the results mean or what should be done about them.
An Even Bigger Challenge: Turning Insight into Priorities
Most board evaluations produce useful information. This can be good, but it comes with a potentially crippling implication: boards often receive more information than they can realistically act upon. Directors leave with greater awareness but not necessarily greater clarity about where to focus next.
Some boards attempt to address every issue identified in the report and make little progress on any of them. Others focus on the most obvious weakness without considering whether it represents the greatest opportunity for improvement. Still others review the findings, acknowledge them, and continue operating much as they did before.
Governance improvement rarely comes from a long list of good intentions. It comes from disciplined attention to the few issues that will make the greatest difference. This doesn’t need to take a lot of discussion time. If there are three actions that jump out as important improvements to make, commit to them and follow through. If there are 14, pick three or four that are manageable in the year ahead, so you are certain to complete them. Write the others on a list to revisit when the first actions are complete. Implementing a few improvements will be much more significant than trying to do seven things and falling short.
From Evaluation to Assessment
Ultimately, the purpose of board assessment is not to generate a report, satisfy a governance requirement, or produce a score.
The real test of a board assessment is whether the process helped the board govern differently.
- Did it clarify what deserves more board attention?
- Did it surface assumptions that need to be discussed?
- Did it reveal differences in perspective that shouldn’t be ignored?
- Did we emerge with clear, meaningful action commitments?
- Did following through on those priorities produce meaningful improvement?
If the answer to any of those questions is no, the board might have completed an evaluation, but it has not yet used assessment as a tool for improvement.
The strongest boards understand that governance excellence is not a destination but an ongoing pursuit. They approach assessment not as an exam to pass, but as an opportunity to learn. They recognize that the greatest value of assessment lies not in the results themselves, but in the conversations, priorities, and commitments that emerge from them.
This is why the design of the assessment matters. The right tool does more than collect director opinions. It helps the board see patterns, notice differences, focus discussion, and translate insight into a manageable improvement agenda. It becomes a practical tool for continuous improvement and a meaningful investment in the board’s future effectiveness.
The most important question for governance improvement is no longer, “How did we score?” but rather, “Where should we invest our energy next?”
Application Questions
- The article suggests that the most valuable information may be found in differing perspectives rather than average scores. Why is that and how might that change the way a board reviews assessment results?
- What other idea from this article challenged your thinking about board evaluation the most? Why?
- Taking time to do a meaningful assessment requires an investment of time, attention, and resources. What outcomes would make that investment worthwhile?
- Based on this discussion, what next step would be most valuable for the board?
This article is the product of years of board evaluation facilitation plus some recent, vigorous discussions amongst ourselves over the past year. We designed the Board Excellence Assessment as a direct solution to these challenges, to help boards through an assessment process that produces meaningful improvement. Learn more at www.boardexcellenceassessment.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s the difference between a board evaluation and a board assessment?
The terms are often used interchangeably, but the distinction matters. “Evaluation” implies judgment against a standard and tends to produce a score or verdict. “Assessment” is oriented toward learning: understanding what a board can see now that it couldn’t before, and then using that information to make adjustments. The goal isn’t to grade the board but to improve how it governs.
How often should a board assess itself?
Most boards find the best value from a formal assessment annually, as it gives enough time to make significant improvements from the findings amidst ongoing board responsibilities. And those improvements should be the real focus in determining the answer to this question. An annual assessment that leads to focused discussion and concrete action commitments is far more valuable than a more frequent one that ends when the report is delivered.
Why shouldn’t we just focus on improving our scores year over year?
A higher score doesn’t necessarily mean better governance. A board can improve a number while making little or no meaningful progress, or hold steady on scores while significantly strengthening its discussions, oversight, and decisions. In fact, the subjectivity of selecting a score means differences from one year to another can be more about the mood board members were in when they did the assessment than actual board performance. The more productive approach is to dig underneath the score to learn where the board should focus its attention to become more effective, and not lean so heavily on the changing number itself.
What if our directors disagree in their responses?
Disagreement is often the most valuable part of an assessment. When thoughtful directors rate the same area differently, it usually reflects different experiences, assumptions, or information. Exploring why those differences exist tends to surface insights that averages alone would hide.
What makes a governance assessment actually lead to improvement?
The conversation that follows it. The survey gathers perspectives and the report organizes information, but improvement happens when directors discuss the findings, challenge assumptions, and commit to a manageable set of priorities. A report on its own has never improved a board.
How many priorities should a board take on after an assessment?
Fewer than most boards expect. Boards have limited time and attention, and trying to address everything usually means progress on nothing. The value of a good assessment is helping directors identify the few actions most likely to strengthen governance, then focusing there.
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