By Thomas Keil and Marianna Zangrillo
Most boards still treat evaluations as a compliance exercise rather than a catalyst for change and improvement. In this article, we explore how chairs and directors can convert board evaluation into behavioral shifts, strategic focus, and measurable progress, turning 2026 into a year of meaningful, lasting governance change.
Every autumn, as board calendars crowd with year-end work, a familiar ritual unfolds across Europe. Feedback forms circulate during board meetings, directors fill-in lengthy questionnaires, consultants conduct interviews and assemble topics and themes, and finally chairs prepare for conversations that feel necessary yet often rather futile. The annual board evaluation, meant to sharpen performance, often ends with a polished report, a neat list of recommendations, and a quiet sense of closure. Yet, if you speak candidly with chairs and directors they will admit a in convenient truth: most evaluations change very little. A director we interviewed put it bluntly: “The board evaluation process is broken in many companies.”
The real work of governance happens not in the diagnosis but in the decisions that follow.
In conversations with chairs over the past year, a recurring theme emerges: boards are increasingly aware of the widening gap between insight and action. They often know what needs to change, whether it is the dynamics within the room, the clarity of roles, the courage to challenge, or the discipline of follow-through, but find it difficult to convert that awareness into new patterns of behavior once regular business resumes. The gravitational pull of the agenda, with its financial updates, regulatory matters, and urgent operational topics, quietly pushes development to the margins.
Boards that succeed in turning evaluations into lasting change tend to share three characteristics, none of which require radical restructuring, and all of which demand a willingness to see evaluations not as an administrative requirement but as part of a broader cultural shift.
First, effective boards treat the evaluation as a strategic instrument rather than a compliance exercise. These boards make time not only to review what the assessment has uncovered but also to reflect on why certain patterns persist and what they signal about the board’s readiness for the organization’s next phase of growth or transformation. Chairs who adopt this mindset often frame the evaluation as the trigger of strategic renewal: an opportunity to connect governance to strategy and long-term value creation. Instead of asking, “What did the evaluation say?” they ask, “What does this mean for the way we lead the organization in the future?” This subtle shift in framing opens space for more constructive conversations about the board’s role, especially in organizations undergoing digital transformation, sustainability transitions, leadership changes, or international expansion in a world of geopolitical upheaval.
Second, boards that translate evaluations into action focus deliberately on behaviors, not just structures. Governance often appears, at least on paper, to be an exercise in frameworks, charters, processes, and decision rights. But the real drivers of effectiveness are human: the way directors listen, the way dissent is expressed, the level of trust between executives and non-executives, and even the emotional undercurrents that influence how decisions are made when information is incomplete, or stakes are high.
Evaluations that lead to real change tend to surface these deeper issues. They reveal, for instance, whether challenge is constructive or performative, whether psychological safety is present or merely assumed, and whether the board’s discussions are shaped more by habit than by genuine inquiry. When directors see behavioral insights not as criticism but as opportunities to strengthen collective performance, the evaluation becomes a turning point rather than a procedural requirement.
Third, boards that embed change adopt a rhythm of follow-through that is as disciplined as the evaluation itself. While that may sound like an overkill, many boards still emerge from evaluations with a list of ten or twelve recommendations, far too many to implement with any seriousness. The boards that improve consistently choose three priorities, assign ownership, and revisit progress every quarter with the same attentiveness they apply to financial oversight. Then, in each quarter, they can focus on a single theme, such as decision-making quality, information flows, committee effectiveness, or succession planning, allowing the board to build new habits gradually rather than attempt wholesale transformation in a single burst of enthusiasm.
This quarterly check-in approach also has an important psychological effect on the whole organization. It signals that the board is not simply reviewing itself out of obligation but that it is committed to continuous improvement. Over time, this commitment builds a culture where feedback becomes normal, where directors feel more accountable to one another and the organization, and where governance becomes dynamic rather than static.
Of course, none of this is possible without leadership, and for that, the chair’s role is pivotal, not as an enforcer but as a steward of the board’s evolution. Chairs who successfully guide their boards through change tend to do five things consistently: they create an atmosphere in which honest dialogue is possible, they model openness to feedback, they protect time in the agenda for reflection, they link evaluation outcomes to the board’s long-term purpose and they remind directors, gently but consistently, that governance excellence is not a destination but a practice.
As organizations prepare for the uncertainties of the next year, economic volatility, geopolitical change, technological disruption, the boards that will thrive are those willing to approach evaluation as the beginning of a developmental journey rather than an end-of-year checkbox exercise. They will recognize that governance transformation does not start because a report recommends it but because people choose to embrace change in the way they collaborate, challenge, reflect, and lead.
If boards embrace this mindset, 2026 can genuinely become the year they shift from simply noting what needs to change to actually doing something about it. Evaluations will stop being documents that gather dust and instead become useful windows into how the board really works. Governance, in turn, will feel less like a set of rules and more like something alive: a way of working that adapts, learns, and supports the organization through moments that require steadiness and honesty.
