In the current abnormal, leaders have a long and ever-growing list of challenges to contend with. If you lead, you no doubt have such a list, one that runs from the grand – challenges such as economic uncertainty, rising costs, attracting and retaining talent and supply chain disruption, to the everyday firefighting that these days can seem just as grand. And yet, it’s a near certainty your list overlooks one of the greatest challenges of all, the one in fact most likely to help leaders weather the storms of the moment: perspective.
Getting perspective
If you’re like most senior leaders, you scoffed just a bit at that last sentence. “I have perspective,” you tell yourself. “I care about my company. I have my direct reports and team members. And I have the vantage point of being the one in charge of it all.” All of it is true, and all of these have value. But each has holes, too. What holes exactly? At a minimum, inconsistency, informality and incompleteness. Moreover, the vantage point of each ends at the borders of your organization. Proper perspective is bigger. It goes beyond what you see and know. True perspective is the kind that takes a dose of intellectual humility to appreciate, and most often the kind that can only come from outside the organizational walls. So, what can you do? Consider cultivating a board of advisors.
A different type of board
Before describing what a board of advisors can do, let’s be clear about what one is. An advisory board isn’t a corporate board. Its members have no fiduciary responsibility or say. They do not formally adhere to a set of bylaws or rules. Moreover, with rare exceptions, they are unpaid, even though, as we’ll explore, there is compensation.
There’s another key difference between corporate boards and an advisory board. In truth, the members of most corporate boards are chosen for their ability to deliver one of the three Cs: capital, credibility or connections. It’s not what appears on paper, but in practice. There is a transactional tone to such relationships. Advisory boards exist on the opposite end of the spectrum. The chief value they bring, or more accurately, should be formed and managed to bring, is perspective.
To build a good board of advisors, an organization should first look at what it lacks. For smaller organizations, that may mean a complete lack of ability in specific skill sets (perhaps an organization that markets but doesn’t have a formal marketing manager or department). For them, an advisor who knows that discipline can, at least for a time, act as a surrogate, advising as to the right strategy to pursue, even if that advisor doesn’t execute the details. Just as valuable, however, firms that have all their skill bases covered can benefit from advisors with more profound or unique knowledge in those disciplines. An advisor who understands how sales teams change as organizations or product lines grow, for example, can help an organization to see into the future and to think ahead about growth and its demands. While not always the obvious criterion, having advisors outside of the organization’s industry and with different experiences than those inside, not only puts honest brokers at the table, but adds openness, creativity and diversity of thought. These are all keys to an organization’s ability to adapt and thrive, especially in uncertain times.
Whatever their vantage points of skill and experience, because advisory board members are not financially vested in the organizations they advise, they can often better bring blunt honesty, critical objectivity and a coaching role to the leaders and organizations they advise. Good advisors have a willingness to call out actual weaknesses or threats in need of attention, things that those within the organization often hesitate to address.
The need to cultivate what you create
All of this sounds wonderful and indeed can be true. But not if leaders fail to manage and cultivate their advisory board. Any good advisory board is ultimately an extension of the organizational team. A board does not exist solely on paper. Its members should have roles and assignments too, and it’s up to senior leaders to define, outline and manage the work it asks advisors to do.
Just as important, the board as a whole needs to be managed as well. Membership is best chosen based on the immediate needs of the organization. It should come with term limits and the expectation of the makeup of the membership evolving and changing to stay current with the organization’s needs. It sounds obvious, but leaders need to be in regular contact with their advisors, both one-on-one and gathered as a group, keeping them up to date, asking for their views and managing their roles to make sure this extension of the formal organization is just that. That’s your side, how about theirs?
The reward for advisors
Why, you might ask, would anyone want such a role? It’s simple. Those who have led successfully know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that they did not do so alone. While the relationships may have been informal, others supported them by giving them perspective, asking the hard questions and holding them accountable. They needed encouragement. They benefited from sounding boards. In short, the compensation to a good advisor is a pay-it-forward kind. Indeed, if a candidate for advisor sees their compensation otherwise, there’s a good chance they’re not a good candidate.
As the leader contemplating a board, what sets all of this good in motion? That’s simple too: Knowing clearly what you are trying to achieve, embracing that you don’t know it all and knowing where you need help. In the trenches day-to-day, these things are easy to forget. If you’re a young senior leader still building your experiences, it can even be hard to see. That’s when you need perspective. That’s when you need others. It might just be when you need an advisor board, too.