Why everyone needs a board of directors

IHAVE just completed a Year of Interesting Conversations during which I have had some riveting conversations.

I had been thinking of how to maintain this when I came across the concept of the Personal Board of Directors in a Harvard Business Review article. The article suggested that you treat your career like a company and appoint a Personal Board of Directors, to drive your career.

They suggested that even though we all have friends, mentors, and sponsors that guide us, individuals might benefit from a more carefully constructed network of people to act as independent advisers.

I loved the idea but, for me, my business and career, my work life, are fully entwined with my spiritual and personal life. My “company” is me.

So, I have extended the idea and identified directors that I can draw upon for specific aspects of my life, not just my career.

My board consists of eight people. Two feed my spiritual hunger. They act as my conscience, I open up to them about dilemmas in my work that test my faith and talk to them when I am worrying that something I am doing, planning or observing, is at odds with my religious beliefs and the teachings of the Bible. With them, I talk about things I feel uncomfortable talking about with work and professional colleagues.

Two are former students. One runs a successful healthcare business which an investor has just offered to buy for a seven-figure sum. The other works in a completely different field to me.

The remaining four I chose to advise me on specific aspects of my business. One, childhood school friend advises me on business strategy, another works for a massive social media company and advises me on community building in the digital world, another on sales and scaling.

I have a mix of men and women, different ethnicities, nationalities and social backgrounds. Most of my directors are younger than me and I have been inspired by the fearlessness of youth. I also had one wildcard, deliberately choosing one person that I am actually scared of! They are so senior to me career-wise, so way out of my league that they make me work “out of my skin” inspiring me with a different kind of wisdom.

You might already have such a network of advisers without labelling it a board, but I have found that thinking about it like that has made me more intentional about investing time in myself, regularly doing a stock take of areas where I need to improve or push myself and cultivating and developing these relationships.

So, get yourself a Personal Board of Directors. I have found it utterly delightful. ■■Stacy Johnson is Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham School of Health Sciences

Most of my directors are younger than me and I have been inspired by the fearlessness of youth