There are countless books on best practices for employee motivation. An Amazon search yields more than 8,000 titles. Combined with lectures and journal articles, you could probably spend the next two years wading through all the information. Many of these writings were sound and offered excellent tools. I intentionally used the past tense “were” and […]

The economic recovery continues to be problematic for the county and, as a result, regulatory pressures on  public companies and their boards remain high with no signs of abating.  Instead of waiting until regulatory  bodies start weighing in on ways to maintain high quality board performance, let’s exert some common  sense and get out ahead […]

Boards must mitigate risk by having a clear destination, getting input if needed, reading the dashboard data, and making judgments. I believe in capitalism’s strength and resilience. With the same  survival-of-the-fittest efficiency living organisms have tapped for  millennia, capitalism will adapt to survive now. But as we work  through this difficult time and try to […]

This past month I participated as a panelist at two governance functions – The 3rd Annual Directors Education Workshop sponsored by GE and The Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance at the Yale School of Management. Both were stimulating events that provided an overview of the best thinking today on current, challenging governance issues. […]

The new normal for many consumers includes eating out once every two weeks instead of every one, getting a haircut every eight weeks instead of six and turning off lights to save on electricity bills. Lifestyle changes and drastic cutbacks in spending have had a profound impact on businesses, including layoffs, pay cuts, unpaid time […]

The country’s economic crisis has shed a bright spotlight on the management of companies by chief executive officers and raised questions relating to CEO performance. Billions in taxpayers’ money have been given to auto companies and financial institutions, including $170 billion to failed insurance conglomerate AIG. In March, when AIG distributed roughly $165 million in […]

The government bailed out Citigroup. The chief executives of the Big Three automakers asked for $25 billion in loans. There will undoubtedly be more corporations asking the government for financial help. Many people are asking, and rightly so, “Who’s been minding the store?” Many Americans are frustrated and angry. How could corporate leadership allow their […]

The 2009 Spencer Stuart Board Index was released in October and while there are no huge surprises, I believe the data signals a shifting center of gravity in corporate governance – a move toward independence, commitment, and accountability. Consider these highlights from the Spencer Stuart study of the S & P 500 companies for 2009. […]

Last month, I was delighted to participate in the Yale Governance Forum, an annual event that is organized by The Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance at their Yale School of Management and attended by more than 300 global directors and academics. The focus of this year’s meeting was to examine changes and uncertainty […]

As I work on this column, Patricia Dunn, former non-executive chairman of Hewlett-Packard’s board, is preparing to testify before Congress about recent revelations that HP was spying on its own board members. As the lead director of a public corporate board, I’ve watched the situation deteriorate and important lessons surface. These lessons have applications for […]