You make a very good point. And there is attention being paid to this, now. In the past it seemed as though CEOs collected directorships like accessories, or like markers to show off their influence. They could do this because everyone knew they didn’t want each other actually acting like directors and interfering in the directed company’s CEO’s business.

But, as you indicate, that is changing, and there is more pressure on boards to perform with some degree of fiduciary professionalism. Some consultants and analysts have developed minimum standards about such things as hours per month required to do a good job as a director. This goes directly to your point about how many boards a CEO can reasonably sit on.

I would agree that if practice followed your excellent observation by CEOs only sitting on one or two other boards, this would represent a strong advance in the way boards perform their roles.

My only remaining concern, though, would be that these directors are still managers – of each other’s companies. On the one hand there would remain a strong bias toward quiet complicity in each other’s roles at the companies where they are the CEO. And on the other, we would still have an institution intended to represent owners over managers filled with those selfsame managers.

Nevertheless, I agree that your point is a strong one and deserves increasing attention in the way boards operate. Where directors do take the time to “do the job that they were hired to do” they, my concerns to the contrary notwithstanding, often do play decidedly robust roles, and definitely not as “pawns of the CEO.”

Thanks for adding this important point into the discussion, and, as always, for your visit.