• 07 Nov 2018

Optimising CEO Performance

CEO Termination - Last Resort?

Recently there was a 101 Fair Work procedural type story on the Better Boards newsletter recently about the steps the a Board must undertake can terminate the employment of a CEO.

Very negative focused indeed!!

Here at NFP Success, we believe that termination of any employee, particularly a senior executive, should be the absolute last resort, after all other approaches have been tried, and failed. 

“Performance Management” as a term has become almost synonymous with the beginning of the end but success is whether a Board has been able to turnaround the performance of a CEO not whether the Board has terminated a CEO correctly in a procedural sense..

When properly executed, with the appropriate attitude and intent of both parties, management of the performance of an employee can achieve remarkable results. Part of the right attitude is taking an objective, rather than a subjective view of the CEO’s performance.

You should have a Position Agreement (as well as a Position Description)  for the role of your CEO,  with a list of activities that both the Board and your CEO have signed off on. These documents, together with Performance Measures, will provide the basis for an objective view of the CEO’s performance. Sometimes, even with these objective measures, you cannot see the whole picture, if you are in the frame, a part of the picture.

At times like this, it is preferable to have an independent third party review the performance against the position’s requirements and to step in to provide coaching to the CEO for improving performance and to achieve the outcomes required by the Board.

NFP Success has the experience and skills for coaching the performance of executives and Boards across the Not for Profit sector.

Phil Day wrote this artice and can be contacted in our Brisbane office on (07) 3417 0194 .

Phil  has extensive experience in the NFP Sector and prior to joining NFP Success, Phil headed up a busy legal practice.

Several of our consultants specialise in coaching CEO's to better performance and advising Boards around recruiting, developing and retaining CEO talent, several of our consultants are former HR Executives and all have served on NFP Sector Boards.