Effective Board Evaluations: A Director's Practical Tips

Beth Vanderslice serves on the boards of AMD Inc., AESC Group Ltd. and Boston College. She was previously a director of Xilinx, Inc., where she chaired the nominating and governance committee, served on the compensation committee, participated in two CEO transitions and created a board evaluation process. Since 2019, she has also been a partner at Trewstar Corporate Board Services, which specializes in corporate board placements and board advisory services.

Both as a director and as a consultant at Trewstar, you've been involved in a number of board evaluations. What lessons have you learned along the way? How do you go about the process?

Traditional board evaluations have tended to rely on standardized, multiple-choice surveys. In my experience, these often result in uniformly high scores — everyone rates themselves a 4 or 5 — which discourages honest reflection and fails to surface substantive issues or opportunities for improvement. Check-the-box approaches do not drive