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THE BOARD BOOK
by Susan F. Shultz

The Board Book cover

Boards of directors can spell the difference between success and failure. Great boards mean great companies. Learn how to avoid the 10 most common mistakes and create a strategic force for your company's success. Learn how to be a great director. And learn how to use boards to benchmark companies as an investment.

A compelling, readable book on a serious and prickly topic: Making corporate boards live up their full, strategic potential.

For nepotism, lethargy, and plain old misguidance, few corporate entities can top the board of directors. And that's a shame, because engaged, knowledgeable boards can make a world of difference, setting an organization's strategic direction, infusing it with valuable expertise, and rendering the company attractive to investors.

The 10 Most Common Mistakes in Using and Creating Boards:

  • The First Mistake: Failure to Recruit Strategically
  • The Second Mistake: Too Many Insiders
  • The Third Mistake: Too Many Paid Consultants
  • The Fourth Mistake: Too Much Family
  • The Fifth Mistake: Too Many Cronies
  • The Sixth Mistake: Getting the Money Wrong
  • The Seventh Mistake: Fear of Diversity
  • The Eighth Mistake: Information Block
  • The Ninth Mistake: Passive Boards
  • The Tenth Mistake: Failed Leadership

The Board Book is the most succinct, reader-friendly guide available to creating and sustaining on-track, top-notch corporate borads — the kind that serve as pivotal success factors for companies of every size, public and private, large and small. Packed with both real-life success and horror stories, this fast-paced book explains the 10 guiding principles for transforming a board, exploring issues such as:

  • Who needs a board anyway?
  • Statutory vs. advisory boards.
  • The 9 steps to recruiting strategically.
  • Insiders, consultants and friends as board members.
  • Conflicts of interest.
  • Boards of family owned companies.
  • The role of boards in venture companies.
  • The money trap.
  • Liability.
  • Turnover, succession, evaluation and more.

The author's guidance is backed by extensive research and hundreds of interviews with CEOs, directors, activists, investors and the broad range of corporate constituencies.


About the Author:
Susan F. Shultz (Phoenix, AZ) is the founder of SSA Executive Search International, Ltd., which includes a division devoted to creating and strengthening corporate boards.


What the experts are saying...

"This is a tremendously important subject. Board members can bring an enthusiasm, intellect and a discipline without which, in many cases, you are not going to survive." — William E. Brock, Chairman, Intellectual Development Systems, Inc., Former Secretary of Labor

"This is a splendid guide to creating the fully capable and effective board for the future, with trenchant observations about the weaknesses of too many boards that we all know, and clear, unmistakable advice, with tools to help, about how to build the kind of strategic and knowledgeable board necessary for success in today's highly competitive world." — Lattie F. Coor, President, Arizona State University

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