Who watches the watchers?

IN Asia, where hierarchy and structure are prevalent, rating one's superiors can be frowned upon as unacceptable. Perhaps, even tantamount to disrespect.

Consequently, the assessment of a board's effectiveness by management is an exercise not for the faint hearted. Some boards have sought to approach this delicate area by using independent third parties such as consultants and academics.

However, reaching out to management for its view of the board is not a common practice here. As such, it could be instructive to learn from the insights of a survey conducted by PwC and The Conference Board in November 2021 on Board Effectiveness: A survey of the C-suite. The survey reached out to 556 C-suite executives at public companies across the US, representing over a dozen industries, the majority of whom lead companies with revenues in excess of US$1 billion.