HOW FIRST CITIZENS STATE BANK’S BOARD SELF-EVALUATES

BOARDROOM BOOTCAMP:

SO, YOU’RE THINKING ABOUT A “BOARD PORTAL”?

BOARD REPORTING

LESSONS FROM GOLDILOCKS

KEEPING BOARD FRESH

HIRE A DETECTIVE?

THE BOARD AND BSA

A CLOSER LOOK AT MINUTES

DIRECTOR SUCCESS SKILLS

LENDING ADVICE FROM A VETERAN

MUCH MORE ABOUT MINUTES

Wisconsin board members believe no director’s ever so good they can’t learn to be better

By Steve Cocheo, editor, ABA Bank Directors Briefing newsletter, scocheo@sbpub.com

Carroll J. Olm—“Olmie” to his friends in Whitewater, Wis., and elsewhere—felt he and his fellow directors could stand some self-improvement. It wasn’t that there was any problem on the board. It’s just that he’d been reading in various director publications about the growing belief that directors should periodically reassess their role and importance. And he decided to try his hand at developing his own director’s survey and self-evaluation form.

This is impressive by itself, but accenting Olm’s effort is that he’s no beginner, not at life nor at bank directorship. He joined the board of $189.8 million-assets First Citizens State Bank in 1979, and continues to serve there as one member of a five-man board. And he’s also in his 80s, a time of life when many folks think they have it all figured out. (Of course, some might say that starts at around 18, but we’ll let that slide.)

Olm is a clergyman, by training, with a DD, and spent about 30 years managing a retirement facility, finishing up there as executive director.

James K. Caldwell, the bank’s president and CEO, has been at the 144-year-old bank since 1974. He’s a former Wisconsin Bankers Association president. A little while back, Olm began talking to Caldwell about how he could learn to be a better director.

Then one day Olm decided that so many people in the bank were evaluated—by management, by examiners, and others—that it made sense for the board members to evaluate themselves.

“The more I thought about it,” says Olm, “the more that I thought we needed it.”

Olm and Caldwell began researching board self-evaluation and Caldwell obtained some sample forms from here and there. Olm went through the samples, drafted up a form for the bank’s board, and then began working it over. Over a couple of months, he began to put his own stamp on it, and he also had Caldwell review it and make suggestions.

In the end, the form, which he shared with ABA Bank Directors Briefing, turned out to be one of the best we’ve seen. One of things we like about it is sections of thought-provoking narrative that Olm and Caldwell worked in. This makes using the form not just an exercise in filling in blanks, but a structured way of reviewing one’s board service.

“The single intent is to make the director the best director he can be,” says Olm.

The board members filled in the forms, Caldwell reviewed them, and then the board discussed their thoughts on what they’d learned at a meeting. Olm says the overriding thought was that they’d all been doing the bank director’s job long enough that the form helped them step out of themselves, and reminded them of the breadth and depth of responsibilities they have.

For his part, Caldwell says “we were pretty well together on most of the points.”

Olm and Caldwell have granted permission for this website to make the form available to other banks, as a springboard for devising a form of their own. Right-Click here to download a Microsoft Word version of the form.