Carefully consider your nominations and re-nominations
It’s more important these days for boards to give a critical eye to every director that is that is up for re-nomination. Too often this is treated as inevitable rather than a privilege to be earned. Too often boards don’t express candor to underperforming directors. Creating a checklist of expectations establishes transparency that pushes towards higher performance.
Succession Planning
So … the NCUA has new proposed rules about the board’s involvement in succession planning. (You do know that, right?) They’re concerned that the board’s relative lack of involvement is undermining the futures of some credit unions. As a last resort from lack of plans, some merge away. We’re not big fans of that.
Succession planning is about preparing to have the right people in place for the future of the organization. That includes discussion of the directors currently in their positions now. We are here today, friends, to talk about incumbents and the re-nomination process. And we’re here to suggest that re-nomination isn’t or shouldn’t be the result of simply asking the incumbent if they want to run again. Re-nomination should be tied to criteria about the board member’s performance over their term.
Recently, Tim created the “Incumbent Director Re-nomination Checklist” that you see here. It came out of his desire to see board members holding each other accountable and setting a transparent process that outlines the responsibilities of directors who want to be renominated for another term. In 18 questions Tim has created a comprehensive review of the incumbent’s performance. This checklist is to be filled out by all other board members. The checklist sets a (fairly minimal) standard for directors to live up to.
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