Part 1: Your not-so-secret weapon | Part 2: BYOB(build your own board) | Part 3: High-octane advice | Part 4: Enriching advice | Board models | What CEOs get out of advisory boards
In 2003, the Queen’s School of Business in Kingston, Ont. produced one of the first Canadian studies of the role of advisory boards in private businesses. Here are some of the findings from that study, as published by the Ontario government: how CEOs ranked an advisory board’s top five contributions:
1. Sounding board
2. Strategy setting
3. New ideas
4. Management issues
5. CEO mentoring
The consensus of the 200 CEOs who responded is that effective advisory boards can deliver significant returns.
When operating well, a board becomes a source of competitive advantage to the firmââ¬Ã¦ a board is also part of the evolution of the CEO as a leader.
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest, CEOs with advisory boards reported an average satisfaction rating with the board’s performance of 8.1.
An advisory board… can give you ‘tough love” advice: the advice you really need but might be avoiding.
