Anthony Goodman is the leader of the North American Board Effectiveness Practice for Korn Ferry, and he understands the challenges boards face meeting the challenge of becoming a high performing board – and maintaining excellence.  In this episode we discuss some of those challenges. Thanks for listening! We love our listeners! Drop us a line or give us guest suggestions here. Links Anthony Bio Analyzing emerging trends in board evaluation practices How boards can adapt to support ESG efforts The 'Climate Change' Director   Quotes Who is responsible for ESG? The idea that ESG is not going to impact the entire board and every committee is a mistake. If you think about ESG as it's supposed to be, it is about the company's strategy and its risk management.  What you're really asking is, “what are the material risks and opportunities of ESG.” ESG Expertise Question: With the increasing emphasis on ESG, does that mean board need a new set of skills and tools and, if so, what are some of the skills and tools they should be considering? What boards need to do first is understand “what are the material risks and opportunities for our company, and when they have done that assessment, or management has done that assessment for them.”  Then the next question they need to ask is, "As we look at the issues for which we need to provide oversight, do we have the skills and experiences on the board to do that? If there's something glaringly missing, how do we get that skill into the board?  But maybe it's about the whole board upskilling.  Maybe it's about the fact that everyone on the board actually needs to understand what the material risks to the business are. Michelle Edkins, who runs the stewardship team globally at BlackRock, has this wonderful saying: "A board made up of one trick ponies is a circus." Board Effectiveness How involved is the board in the strategy how involved has the board been in helping to develop the strategy and overseeing the strategy? How involved are they in risk management and identifying and making sure that risks are being dealt with? How effective have they been in hiring and firing CEOs The question is who can the board get feedback from? It’s often just within the board itself, but you could, for instance, ask senior managers whether the board is actually adding any value to them. Is it providing guidance? Is it providing challenge? Do they feel stretched by this board or not? You could ask your investors. You could ask your audit firm. You could ask your law firm. There are a number of stakeholders that are in and around the boardroom that observe how the board is doing. Board meeting agenda It takes a certain amount of courage to ask for an outside-in view of the board. It's much easier to do than an inside-out view and just ask the other directors how you're doing. People have got a lot of choices these days. The idea that boards are the buyer, actually no, boards now have to sell themselves to candidates, particularly good candidates who are women - who are people of color, who are digital natives - because those are the people everyone want on their board, and the real question is, why should they want to come on your board?   I think we've all got to be grownups about this, that sometimes it's just our time and we have to be willing to let go, but I think a lot of people's personal identity is tied up with being a board director, and if this is your last public company board, you're going to try and hang on to it as long as you can. Otherwise, what are you going to tell people down at the golf club that you do? You're a board director.   I sometimes say collegiality is a mask that covers up a lot of problems underlying in the board, and one of them is the inability to let go and allow people to make a dignified exit from the board.   Big Ideas/Thoughts Board Culture Culture problems cause issues for lots of companies, and it isn't just when t