Socrates famously advises us that the unexamined life is not worth living.
We would add that the unexamined boardroom will not be worth much for long!
Measurement and data continue to be critical to business growth, yet the Harvard Business Review recently found that most boardroom evaluations are inadequate, and that those poor evaluation processes are often at the root of many common boardroom complaints.
We recognize that there is a direct line from boardroom awareness and performance measurement to the growth & health of the business itself. It’s why we created a way to bring together key company metrics, boardroom performance visibility, and simple self-measurement capabilities so that board directors and all boardroom stakeholders can understand performance anytime, at a glance.
We call it the balanced board scorecard.
Here’s why it makes Cloud Concinnity® a next-level software.
Visibility
Imagine nothing forgotten and everything measured. We think that should be the way things work, giving every board director visibility into all critical information on a single screen. We begin with things like a business milestone & highlight summary showing progress since the previous board meeting, then add on a financial status update chart and a brief overview of industry changes to keep track of. Combined with team engagement tracking and a personal task summary, this screen means you get the lay of the land within a minute or two of logging in every time. Nothing forgotten, everything measured.
Accountability
As HBR found in their survey, one of the biggest challenges for any board of directors is self-evaluation. After being largely ignored for decades, board evaluation and measurement has often been outsourced to consultants in recent years — often under the auspices of objectivity. But the wrong outside expert can lack the nuanced understanding and context required to make anything more than general suggestions for improved board performance. The truth is, boards benefit from taking a hard look at themselves and building intelligent, ongoing self-evaluation into their plans.
The board scorecard contains an elegant process for doing that by quantifying & reinforcing board and leadership engagement, along with a way to track risk management, strategy, and company performance. Built-in 360° evaluations mean the board can manage and evaluate itself, laying important groundwork for transparency & accountability.
Connectivity
Finally, bringing together the self-awareness of the single screen overview and the self-evaluation of the board scorecard means all boardroom stakeholders will increase connectivity, building the foundation for ongoing collaboration. Scorecard blocks are fully customizable so you can configure by priority and determine access with role-based permissions. As with other parts of Cloud Concinnity®, the goal is not to create busywork but to streamline processes between meetings and create a more agile, nimble group of board directors who can be proactive in the good times and responsive in a crisis.
Interactive, real time evaluations of each other mean that all boardroom stakeholders can safely and securely weigh in on the state of the board without being sabotaged by the time-pressures and interpersonal dynamics at the meeting itself. This enables real time course correction throughout the quarterly board meeting cycle, and provides the legal team a secure environment with everything they need to prove compliance that is up to date and ready anytime.
Together, increased visibility, accountability and connectivity mean a boardroom that is always improving and ready for anything. In a business world where chaos is often the new normal, this is exactly the kind of agile tool that keeps boards ready to take action at any point in the cycle.