Grant Peterson StudiosDesign & Communications Blog (and a few other thoughts…)

Several years ago, I heard about the concept of a “personal board of directors.” The idea of the board is to provide an individual with guidance on professional and personal issues and to help set and achieve goals. When I heard about it, I immediately loved the idea. There are so many issues in life that can only be fully understood in retrospect (ala hindsight is 20/20) and what better way to help navigate those types of situations than through the wisdom of a few individuals that have already been there!

Why Have A PBOD?
No matter what your personal or educational background, you cannot prepare for many of the real-life scenarios that will confront you on a day to day basis. In my case, my dad is a pastor and my mom is a teacher – our dinner time conversation surrounded church politics, not profit margins and the like. Although I gained an untold amount of wisdom from my parents, it just didn’t include much business savvy. I’ve managed to figure a lot of things out on my own over the last decade (mostly through trial and error), but I am quickly realizing that tapping into the wisdom of experienced elders eliminates a lot of the guess work (and anxiety).

Truthfully, this idea isn’t novel, many people have commented on the importance of and the process for developing a personal board, but this is just my personal take.

Who Should Be On The Board?
It may sound like a no-brainer, but selecting the right board members is the most critical component of the PBOD process. Everyone has unique wisdom and experience to offer, so your list of potential directors may initially be long. Across the board I wanted successful men of integrity, but beyond that, I tried to identify a few more specific types of people that I wanted to have involved:

1. A well connected person that can help me network,
2. A no-nonsense “straight-shooter” that has no problem telling me like it is, and
3. A pastor who brings a spiritual perspective (this is of personal importance to me, but is not a prerequisite)

Once you’ve pared your list down, the next essential question you have to ask is, “who will be personally invested in me and my growth?” This question is absolutely paramount. Just as a business-centric Board of Directors exist to hold corporations accountable and to push them on to success, so must your PBOD. Each individual must see you as a personal investment, as though they are a shareholder. If they don’t, they’ll flake out, and that doesn’t help anyone – especially you!

What Does The Board Talk About?
The beauty of a PBOD is that the topics for discussion are entirely up to you. If you are taking the initiative to build a personal board, you are probably introspective enough to identify areas that you want/need to grow. Share these things with your board. If you selected the right group of members, the conversation will flow from there. I personally agonized about how my first PBOD meeting would play out; I wrote what I wanted to say word-for-word the day before (Yeah, I’m that anal). It was a good exercise because it helped me identify what I desired from the group. You can substitute your own self-analysis process, but be prepared to verbalize what you want to discuss – you owe it to yourself and the group members to come prepared.

What the Board Expects of You?
Most of this post is about what you should expect of your board, but the board has the right and responsibility to have expectations of you as well. You are asking these individuals for their time and wisdom – when they give it to you take it seriously with the utmost gratitude. Your board will probably want to see you making progress in the areas that you identified, so do the things that they ask you to do (even if you don’t want to). Be honest. Be honest about your fears, your insecurities, your frustrations, and temptations. More than likely your members will have already traveled the road you are on and have priceless wisdom to offer. Vulnerability is tough, but mentor/mentee relationships depend on it – you’ll get out of this experience hat you put into it.

Other Things to Think About
Meeting frequency - I selected once a month, but weekly or quarterly is fine as well. I think a conference call from time to time is okay when all the members can’t be physically present, but so much communication is nonverbal that it’s best to see each other in person whenever possible.

Where to meet – every group is different, ask you members what works for them (breakfast, lunch, coffee, dinner, meeting at one of their homes, etc…). My group meets for a casual breakfast at a central and convenient location.

How long to meet – I suffer from paralysis of analysis (which is partly why I need a PBOD!) so I could talk about most of my PBOD topics endlessly from every angle. That being said, I try to keep meetings to an hour and a half and walk away with a handful of clear action items.

Go Fourth!
The toughest step is actually doing it. I sat on the idea for almost three years before doing anything about it. My biggest hang up was the thought that no one really wanted or had the time to be a part of such a group. The truth is that if you select the right members, they are the kind of people that live for this stuff. Investing in people is their joy, not to mention it’s pretty darn flattering to be asked to do so. So go on and build your board, don’t wait three years!

This is the first post of the revised version of my website… I figured I should actually write something rather than parking two paragraphs of Greek dummy text for my copious Greek readers to enjoy.

I’m in the process of revamping the site to be a more relevant commentary on design and communications rather than another blog that talks about what my dog did yesterday or how fun it was to take my grandma to the park last week. I hope to periodically write posts about design, marketing and communications trends that are affecting me and the business that I work in. That being said, here we go!