Much has been written about the importance of providing
comprehensive orientation programming (i.e.,
"onboarding") to new board members, in order that they
may be capable of assuming their board duties and responsibilities
on an accelerated basis. Following recent media coverage, attention
is now spreading to onboarding activities involving an incoming CEO
and new board chairs.
For example, a recent article in Forbes spoke to the value
of more direct board involvement in what the article described as
the "acquiring, assimilating, and accelerating" of new
CEOs. The goal of such an exercise is to respond to the daunting
statistic indicating that 40 percent of new CEOs fail in their
first 18 months of service. The Forbes
article focuses on several factors critical to the onboarding
process: the need for the board to assure alignment on expectations
for the recruitment process and the desired CEO characteristics;
assembling a broad list of qualified candidates in order
