After countless hours preparing presentations, chief compliance officers (CCOs) may feel like their briefings for boards end in mere minutes. I’ve sat through these while serving on boards, hearing about data that didn’t seem to matter much for board purposes. For example, the number of employees completing annual training or taking surveys may be a good document to have on file; however, it’s not necessarily good board material to present on its own.

Providing a more complete compliance story—good or bad—is what the board needs to know. You can paint a picture with quantity (e.g., data and measurements), but that picture comes to life by adding a quality component.