In some prior posts, I’ve outlined the gift of having a mentor or a slew of mentors and also a framework to begin actively managing the relationships in your life. Both were building towards this article.
There are a number of concepts and strategies used in business that are relatively portable in transposing into your personal life. One of these is a notion of a board of directors – for you.
Kind of a strange concept for many I think.
If you are the CEO of you, of your life – then it makes sense as a business guy to have a board of directors. A board of directors can be constructed in a variety of ways depending upon the makeup of the given business, and these constructs are defined by government regulations and of the businesses bylaws. If you want to geek out on this as a concept – the wikipedia article here – is useful to consider.
For my purposes, I’m keeping it simple. Who do you have as an enlisted set of strategic advisors that provide you counsel as you move forward in life? For many of us, we default to our parents, grand parents, possibly God parents, and maybe even a close friend or three. This is useful, however boards of directors change over time. Rarely do boards have permanent members…
So if you take stock of your inner circle relationships – is this your default board of directors?
Is it your roster of mentors that is your board of directors?
Do you have differing friends and colleagues that you rely upon depending upon the topic?
Do you have any professionals hired into your board?
Do you have any spiritual guides employed in your board?
Do you have any ‘reach contacts’ that you could possibly enlist in attaining whatever it is that you are intending to hit?
Have you told your board of directors that you consider them members?
Do you convene a regular meeting of your board?
Lot of questions to ponder as you consider building a board up.
I’ve largely defaulted to a set of professionals that I’ve hired onboard in the past few years, coupled with a few very close long standing relationships, another very close relationship, and two primary mentors.
My current board is not totally aligned to where I’m taking everything, and this article is serving as a reminder that I need to realign a few things. I’ve not informed the folks that I’ve relied upon that they are ‘members of the board’ – though I’m sure they know that they are exceptionally trusted when I’m knocking on their doors for some guidance.
I am also in parallel building up an additional board of directors for another project that is being actively worked. That board is more functionally aligned as it is aligned in terms of building out a business.
So back to building out a personal board of directors – with legitimate next steps.
Step 1 – Decide if you need a board of directors
Step 2 – Decide the level of formality you want to employ with this notion of a board of directors.
Step 3 – Decide how long you intend to keep the current makeup of the board of directors? Six months to a year seems reasonable to me.
Step 4 – Decide the roles you wish to fill. This is where things can get really fun, as this will likely start to align you with where you are heading with your life. The larger this board becomes the harder it will be to manage if you are running this in an overly formal manner.
Step 5 – Decide the frequency you will be connecting with the team either collectively, as a subset, or as individuals. You could do monthly conference calls, I’m not kidding here.
Step 6 – Determine where they can start to help you in furthering your mission and path forward.
Step 7 – Determine how you can help them out with their missions or reciprocate in some manner. Many times, these are the relationships that will not even consider any reciprocal help from you.
So here are some roles and leading questions for your consideration as you seek to round out your board membership:
Must you have close family members involved? Will your spouse or partner be a member? Will your siblings be engaged? Parents? Grandparents? Children?
What sorts of professionals will you be engaging? Tax professionals? Legal? Financial planning? Financial accounting? Branding? Marketing? PR? Personal coaching? Personal counseling? Executive coaching? Fitness coaching?
What sorts of spiritual guidance do you require? Will you engage your pastor or local clergy? Is there an overly spiritual friend that you enjoy consulting with?
Are there any friends and close non familial relationships that you need to employ? Are they able to satisfy a few different roles?
Are there any mentors that just provide experienced leadership? They know your blindspots?
Are there any contacts you have in your network that could be cultivated to help you get where you aspire to be? Perhaps these are people that have done what you would like to do or they have become what you wish to become?
Some leading thoughts here for your consideration. This is about cultivating a team or mastermind to use an overused term to help you in your mission of building the life you envision.
Life is a team game, and enlistment of others is something that can be intentionally cultivated when you ask for the help.