Why Building Your Personal Board of Directors is Crucial for Your Success

Amplifying and elevating your career requires a strategy. One of my favorite and most effective approaches is to build a personal board of directors. 

In this episode, I walk you through assembling a dynamic group of mentors, advisors, and industry peers, all committed to your growth. Learn how to choose individuals who will push boundaries and inject diverse perspectives into your decision-making process, going beyond what friends and family can offer. I'll also clarify the roles mentors, coaches, and sponsors will play in challenging and expanding your thought process rather than simply replacing it.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Hi, welcome to the Career Refresh podcast. I'm your host, jill Griffin. I'm a former media and marketing executive turned career strategist and executive coach. I spent my career working my way up and through the ranks of global organizations and startups, and today I show others how to be the same. Join me each week as we discuss the strategies and actionable steps to leverage your strengths, increase your confidence and develop your career well-being Ready, let's do it. Hey there, welcome back to the Career Refresh podcast. I'm your host, jill Griffin.

Speaker 1: 0:53

This week, I want to talk about building your personal board of directors. It's a concept that I created many years ago when I was still working in advertising agencies, when I really wanted to round out the various voices that I had around me. I had excellent mentors and advisors within the company, but I also wanted to make sure that I was staying in touch with the industry, knowing what was going on. Making sure that I was doing this by meeting with other leaders regularly. Motivational speaker Jim Rohn famously said that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with, and I know you've heard this quote before. It relates to the law of averages, which is a theory that, at any one given situation. We are the average of all outcomes and this concept of taking personal inventory and creating a personal board of directors has been so incredibly helpful to me personally throughout my life. If you're someone who doesn't get a lot of feedback from your boss or the leaderships in your company or your ELT, it's really helpful to build a BOD so that you're proactive, you're growing through challenges, you're finding outside voices to challenge your thinking, and it's really essential to have a board of directors to support you and stretch you and really grow that brain.

Speaker 1: 2:15

I'm not talking about asking your friends, your spouse, your partner, your certificate other for advice. If you have friends or people in your life who are able to give you objective professional advice, that's awesome, but it's also pretty rare because most times our friends can't speak about the critical aspects of our life and of our business, but they can speak about their own. So I have many friends, but they don't necessarily do what I do, so it's really hard for them to give advice specifically, while they are experts in providing an insight and advice in the more general fashion into my life. If your friends can help you get a promotion or help you network within your company or within your industry. Great, go for it. Friends tend to see things through the prism of their own lives and they're not trained necessarily to see your life as independent from theirs. Right, they think of you in the way that your relationship is set up, not necessarily understanding all that you do. And there's other times that our friends and partners can't tell us the truth as much as we'd like them to, because they don't want to risk harming the relationship or hurting feelings.

Speaker 1: 3:21

So a board of directors can be a mentor or an advisor. A mentor and advisor is someone who shares their knowledge, skills and experience and helps you grow. It can also be a peer with whom you share knowledge or a strategic sparring partner. But listen up too often we look for one person to fill all these needs, and if we want one person to be like the all in, you know, if we're looking at our boss or our CEO or an industry leader, this can be really hard because we're expecting one person to fill all these needs and it's pretty unrealistic because they may not always be available to you. So if I try to make my boss or my business partner be all things, it's not going to work. There's just too much pressure, I may not get a wide point of view and, like I said, people aren't always available when you need them. In the moment, a board of directors should be a wide array of people I like to aim for seven to 10 to have sort of in your orbit and remember this is a way of getting valuable insight from a diverse set of voices.

Speaker 1: 4:22

It's not to outsource your thinking. We're not asking other people to think for us. We're simply asking them at times to challenge our thinking so that we can stretch and grow. When I see things the same way, I eventually figure out that I'm in a thought loop. I then speak to my coach, my mentor or one of my industry peers to help me think differently. Other times I want to completely stop thinking about my particular challenge and go focus on something else. So I have a list of smart and thought provoking questions that I can ask others to get out of my head and out of my own way, and later, when I come back to my challenge, I'm usually able to approach it from a fresh mindset, consciously creating your board of directors, getting clear on who you want on it, what you need to grow and the character traits that you want to be associated with, even if you don't know the person yet, will enable you to get your professional needs met.

Speaker 1: 5:19

So there are three steps that I see in creating your personal board of directors. First, be strategic. Again, it's not about friendship. While a friendship may develop, and that's a lovely benefit, this is about finding what you are missing in your inner circle and what you're missing with the voices within your immediate day to day. Do you need sales training, access, negotiation, guidance, networking? Do you need help on leading teams? Think about what it is that you need.

Speaker 1: 5:49

Step two who do you want on your board of directors? And when I say who do you want, I really mean what are the characteristics that you want? Do you want mentors that specialize in developments, that can help you network and open doors? Do you want a coach that can guide you to build your mindset, aid and belief building, that'll catch your sneaky, sabotaging thoughts and that can help you set goals and apply accountability to achieve them? Do you want a sponsor, who's usually within your company? They're someone who can advocate, but they tend to benefit from your advancement, and this is usually because they have goals to grow and sponsor others in the company.

Speaker 1: 6:27

Do you want an advisor, someone who has specific expertise in an area and that they can guide you and answer your questions. Make a list of industry executives and peers that you may be able to tap into for an advisor. So step three is cadence and curiosity. One, I want you to figure out how often you're going to meet. This may be discussed with the person who's on your board of directors or it may just be your own random plan. Again, this is your world. You get to decide. Second is curiosity, and I think about it as thinking of three questions and making sure that it's a two-way conversation.

Speaker 1: 7:04

So some questions that you may want to bring to your next board of directors conversation are asking the person how are they going to make an impact this year? What are they focusing on? What's something that surprised them about the role when they first started? What's surprising them today? What skills do they think are most important for someone interested in a role that they currently have? What are some of the biggest challenges that they're facing day to day and how did they build resilience to overcome these challenges? What expires them and excites them today? Are there other people that you should meet or talk to? And then, last, you want to make sure that you're always in reciprocity, so you want to ask them is there anything that you can do for them? Do they need to be introduced to someone? Are they looking for certain talent and staff to fill their team? How can you be of service back to them so that you're continuing to make sure that when you're meeting with people, it's beneficial for all involved?

Speaker 1: 8:00

So sometimes there are character traits that I want on my board of directors, but I don't know anyone who can fill that yet. So instead of spinning and stressing out on what I don't have, I just decide that I'm gonna find that character trait. When I really write down the character trait and I give pause, I might actually know the person but I just don't think I do that can possesses that particular character trait. Or once I've written it down at least now I know what I'm going after, because what I focus on starts to become my results. So there may be things that you want to write down in your life when you think about it through the lens of character traits or wants. So some things that are on my list I need intellectual banter.

Speaker 1: 8:35

I need meaningful challenges to my business goals and practices. I want visionary conversations about what's possible in business and innovation. I want someone who enjoys dissecting commercials, advertising and film production. I love to talk about scenes, the directors brilliant I or to talk about how else you could drive that point. Home strategy I Need to talk about all things strategy for goals, business, everything. I'm a trained strategist and I want someone who can talk about the latest in digital technology and policy. I mean I want to be able to talk about the pivot podcast with someone.

Speaker 1: 9:14

I need someone to challenge my mind. I need someone who can encourage me when I struggle. I want someone who is creative and is currently creating, not just consuming. I want someone I can mentor and coach. I want someone who I could talk about mindset concepts and a growth mindset. Someone who's interested in the latest ideas around functional medicine, functional health and well-being. I want someone who's interested in strengths base Coaching and how we leverage our strengths to create any result we want in our lives. I want a friend who is a CEO of a large company and I want a fellow coach, and this is one area that I'm lucky to have many dear friends and community engines who are around me and behind me at all times.

Speaker 1: 9:55

So, by listing the things that you want, you're taking care of your needs for thought, leadership, feedback, stretch, connection, growth, all while setting yourself up for success. And lastly, some people know they're on my board of directors and others don't. My favorite boss, olivia Gehr's, probably has no idea that he's on my board of directors unless he's listening. And if he is, hi, olivia. A board of directors is about you and your needs. Go and create what you want to need. You got this.

Speaker 1: 10:25

Okay, my friends, let me know your thoughts on building your personal board of directors. What's been most successful for you? What's been most surprising? How has it benefited you? And, before I go, knowing your strengths, your values, your skills, I believe is the fastest way to up level your career and differentiate yourself, and I'm launching a group program called amplify your strengths, and I believe it's the fast path to Future-proofing your career. The program is going to start soon, so if you want to be in the now on all the details, I'll put the information, the show notes and you can get on the list.

Speaker 1: 10:59

All right, my friends, I wish you a great week and I'll see you next time. Hey, thanks for listening to the career refresh podcast. If you're enjoying this and want more information, go to my website, jill Griffin coaching comm. There you can find information on how to work with you one-on-one or my crew programs, or even bring me into your workplace. I'll put the link to my website in the show notes, but hey, listen before you go. Do me a favor, great, and review this podcast, because it definitely helps me get the word out to people everywhere so they can also thrive in the workplace. All right, friends, I appreciate you. I'll see you soon.