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Redefining the Board of Directors: A New Era

What comes to mind when you think of a corporate board of directors? Thankfully, the vision of a bunch of old white dudes eating caviar and playing golf is starting to fade. And the implications are massive. Now, it’s no secret that the pace of change continues to accelerate. This rapid transformation is redefining how businesses and boards function.

The role of modern boards has changed dramatically, and they’re playing a greater role In corporate governments and ultimately business performance, we live in an exciting time. It’s expanding the opportunity and potential for people like you to make a massive impact on business and society. Today we talked about why joining a board of directors can be a great way to do that.

Why it can be beneficial to add to your career plan. How to make it happen and how to avoid some of the most common mistakes people make when trying to join a board. Welcome to the Working Well [00:01:00] podcast, the show that explores the rapidly changing landscape of work and well being. Each episode, we dive into the hottest topics in leadership, employee well being, and the future of work.

I’m your host, Tim Borys.

Introducing the Expert: Janelle Brittain’s Boardroom Insights

My guest today is Janelle Brittain, CSP. She’s founder and CEO of Dynamic Performance Institute, a 30 year old firm That works with leadership of companies and their boards for 47 years. She served on a variety of boards while matching over a thousand executives with their ideal corporate board.

She consults with boards to assess their governance effectiveness, help with interventions, advises the CEO and board chair how to work together and lends expertise to resolve other important board issues. She has been a managing director of mastermind advisory board. And for 12 years was the director of Bordology Institute for Boardroom Bound.

Welcome to the show, Janelle. So great to have you here after previous conversations. [00:02:00] Welcome. I’m so glad to be here with you, Tim. You have such an important mission behind your work. Thank you. And discussing boards is a pretty unique topic for the Working Well podcast, and some of the listeners may be a little unsure why we’re featuring it, but I’m excited to feature it because I feel the role and the potential impact that boards can have is so often misunderstood by many people outside the C suite in business.

A lot of people just don’t even consider it, especially if they’re maybe new to leadership or not even in leadership at all. They’re like, I could never be on a board. I know you have some amazing insights to share. You’ve got an incredible history with boards and I look forward to diving into it.

The Power and Impact of Joining a Board

Now, let’s start with a simple yet nuanced question.

Why should people even consider being on a board? So often, as you say, people are focused on their jobs, their family, their personal lives, their health, and yet they will [00:03:00] complain about the company, complain about this and complain about that. Why I would ask, so what do you want to do about it?

And one of the things you can do about it is you can get on, for instance, a corporate board. You can also get on non profit boards and you can have a much bigger impact and create and transform organizations and companies. So that people can be healthier. Let’s say it’s a heart association or Alzheimer’s or children’s organizations for nonprofits, you can have such a huge impact that feeds your heart and that they talk a lot about longevity and some of the factors that cause people to live long lives.

One of them is that you feel that you’re having an impact. So what feeds your heart, you can. Make a big change in the world. And again, if you’re complaining about work what at the bigger [00:04:00] level would you change to create a better work culture, for instance, is to be on corporate boards. I like what you said about that, that it’s really the passion and purpose.

And so much of what people struggle with in day to day life is just not having that passion and purpose. They feel that they’re always run down and beat up by work. How realistic is it for people to get involved in boards that I would suggest that as you have progressed in your career, and you get to a stage of your career where you feel you’ve learned some lessons, you’ve accomplished some challenges.

You’ve maybe even done a turnaround in your department. You’ve had some things where you could share what you have learned with others. That’s when you’re at the stage of when you can give back at the board level. And when you’re going to be on a board, there’s a couple of other [00:05:00] things to think about.

It can help your career. It increases your credibility. When you talk about serving on a board, it also challenges you to think more strategically. About problem solving about planning for the future about how you want things to be and it lifts up your perspective from the day to day grind of things so that again, you can have a bigger impact, but I like that.

And you mentioned that. Once people get to a certain point in their career, but if we flip that upside down and say, what about someone who’s new to their career wants to accelerate it more effectively, how can someone that’s really like a new worker set themselves up for long term success? What opportunities exist for them?

First off, put it on their career plan to [00:06:00] get on boards. And then to work towards it, one of the first steps for a newer person in their career would be to be on nonprofit boards and find a board that you are passionate about. There’s a lot of different kinds of nonprofit boards. 1 kind is what I would call the charity type.

Again, if it’s a disease, or if it is domestic violence, or children related, or something that you care a lot about, Then first get involved in the organization and then work your way up to be on the board and another type of a nonprofit board is professional associations. Let’s say you have got your accounting degree, the professional association for accountants to get on that board.

You can be on your local chapter board 1st. You first get involved maybe on some committees and then go for the board and then go for the national board. [00:07:00] You will grow so much as you go through that process.

Navigating the Board Landscape: Corporate vs. Nonprofit

And so let’s expand that a little bit and identify the differences between you. You mentioned corporate boards, nonprofit boards, charity boards.

What are the major distinctions and differences between those? In some ways there’s a lot of similarities. And in both cases, nonprofit and corporate, you have a fiduciary responsibility. That means that when you’re on a board, someone can sue the board for their decisions. You the purpose for you being on that board is to make sure that the board’s going to make educated decisions.

Now, the judge of what’s right and what’s wrong can be the court system, but in most cases, court systems bend in favor of the board as long as they asked questions to try to make the right decisions. So there’s the fiduciary responsibility is similar in [00:08:00] both. And another thing that’s similar is the amount of time required.

You might think nonprofit would be less, not necessarily. So for instance, let’s say you’re being interviewed for. A board of either type 1 of the things they’ll say is we have 4 meetings a year, or we have a meeting a month. Then you’re going to put that on your calendar and you’re going to say, okay, there’s that 2 hours.

I’m going to allocate to that. Whatever board or for corporate board. Sometimes it’s a whole day. Once a quarter, a little bit different timing. That’s only the tip of the iceberg. There’s much more than that. So most studies say it takes an average of about 200 to 250 hours a year to serve on a board. So a question to ask yourself is, do you have that time and now something that is different, though, as you may already assume between nonprofit and corporate, you get paid for being on the board [00:09:00] and let’s take well, how much as an example, if you are on, let’s say, in a corporate advisory board.

Startup company, and they want you to meet just once a quarter, a couple of hours, they might just pay you 500 for the meeting. And I’m speaking in US here, but Canada is very similar. But then as you would work with more mature companies, then like private companies, the averages are somewhere between 10 and 70, 000 a year to be on those boards.

If you’re on public companies, then it usually goes way up from there, from 800, 000 a year. So again, it decides on, depends on the size of the company, the maturity, private or public. But again, corporate boards have the compensation.

Yeah, because a lot of people call not for [00:10:00] profit boards, volunteer boards. Maybe it’s your local church or your community, like you said, community association or something like that. This the kids sports organization are volunteer boards. Yeah, the kids schools that they go to be on a school board and all that’s good experience.

Yeah, and you mentioned the different meeting rhythms that they’d have, and what the time commitment might be, but what types of, decisions and subcommittees and things like that are there and what opportunities are there to learn. Yes, that’s a very good point. Almost always when you’re on a board, there will be some subcommittees. And so you need to count that time in there, too. On, let’s say corporate boards, almost all board positions have to serve on at least 1, if not 2, sometimes 3 committees.

It could be audit committee, and again, on the corporate boards, they would have something called the nominations or governance or human [00:11:00] capital or leadership development type of companies, the people oriented a committee, excuse me. So there’s different kinds of committees on a nonprofit.

There will be the fundraising committees. They may have audit committee as well. They may have strategic planning committee. So there would be different committee works that you would have to serve on too. And how does that feed into that overall time commitment of the 250 hours approximately?

Or is that on top of it? No, that feeds into it. Yeah. Yeah. And now another piece is how much does it cost to be on for you to be on a board? Now, there are some charities. That they want you to say that you will invest in the charity 1, 000, 5, 000, whatever their ask is, or if you can’t do it, that you [00:12:00] would be able to tap other people to bring in that amount of money.

Just be sensitive that in a charity scenario, they may be asking you to be a donor. As well, when that brings up a good point is different people bring different skill sets to the table and being very clear about what that skill set is will help you find your place on the board, especially in the charity side.

A lot of times it’s if you can bring a big book of business into potential donors into the business. Or into the organization, then you’re basically in a fundraising role for that board. But there are other people that come in from a strategy or, operation,

If we call it old school Rolodex, right? Exactly, and some of that applies also to small companies may ask their board directors to fundraise to try to find venture [00:13:00] capitalists and those kinds of connections. Or perspective clients introduce the company to perspective clients.

So that could be a requirement for a smaller company in what they’re looking for. And you take a small little aside is you’ve been. You’ve run boards in some capacity for 47 years and you’ve got a wealth of experience.

The Evolution of Board Dynamics and Diversity

How do, how have you seen the, maybe not the role, because I think the overall role of boards has been pretty similar, but how have you seen it evolve over the years?

Oh, it’s dramatically changed. Especially in the corporate world. In the olden days, 20 years ago or earlier, the boards were all made up of senior white males. And they were all, almost all CEOs with the occasional attorney or CPA, [00:14:00] and we have been able to break through the glass ceiling through a variety of approaches, whether it’s been legislation, regulations, social pressure, variety of things to get more women and minorities on corporate boards.

So that has caused a major revolution. The other revolution that happened was shortly after the year 2000 when the inner workings of the boards became public when some major companies started to, we learned about fraud in some major companies. And it went all the way to the board level, like the in runs of the world and others.

Then that opened up the boards and now the requirements on boards and the visibility of what corporate boards do public ones is so much greater than it ever had been before, but it makes them be more responsible and to do the job that they were really [00:15:00] there before to do before, because what would happen is it was like a country club.

They come together for their quarterly meeting, they meet for a couple of hours, the board members rubber stamp whatever the CEO wants, and they go golfing for the rest of the time. In today’s world, it’s serious business because they are now being held accountable. So that board culture has dramatically changed.

Now, there’s another change that has happened, and that has to do with social responsibility kinds of things, environmental, societal and governance focused kinds of issues. And so now boards are putting on their boards. People are who are specialists in that area. Now, other social subject matter expertise areas that are really hot right now.

Is anybody in I. T. A. I. Blockchain [00:16:00] cyber security any of those areas or combination of those areas boards are looking for you. Because they suddenly need to know what are the right kinds of questions we need to be asking our head of it to make sure that our company is not going to get hacked is not going to have problems.

You’re not going to be held ransom all kinds of issues. That’s companies and boards are having to face. So the makeup of the boards is so different. Now, there’s still maybe a couple of CEOs on the board, but there are also more subject matter experts on the board than ever before. Yeah, and from what you said, taking a more active role in the governance and direction of the organization rather than just rubber stamping.

And I think we see that in the news substantially based on, the [00:17:00] how. Much more open the black box has become since the end runs of the world, but exactly, and a lot of what I’ve been talking about is public board focused and your first board will probably, I’m speaking to the general world out there.

Your first board will probably not be on a public company board, probably be on a private company board. And quite frankly, the opportunity is much greater on private company boards. In the U. S., 98 percent of corporations are privately held. Only 2 percent are public. Now, we hear about the public ones there in the front pages of the newspaper, but the private ones we don’t hear about unless it’s a real catastrophe kind of thing.

Again, the opportunity is much greater for your first boards. For small, medium, and large privately held companies, whether it’s family owned, public or private equity owned or whatever. There’s much more opportunity with privately held companies. And so [00:18:00] how would someone go about finding these private companies and getting on boards?

Oh, that’s the big question.

Strategies for Board Success: From Preparation to Participation

So let me share the answer to that in a couple of segments. One is, if you’ve decided that it is at the point of your career where you feel you have something to offer at the board level, then I help you translate your executive accomplishments into board language. So it’s very important that you know how to speak board language versus executive language.

It’s very different. And you can mess up an interview, for instance, you can mess up how you talk about what it is you bring to a board by putting it in the wrong language. So we take that and we put it into a board resume, and then we also look at your LinkedIn and we tweak your LinkedIn to have more of a board focus because you can get board opportunities through LinkedIn.

[00:19:00] And then you will learn how to network differently. Now what some people will say if you want to be on the board, don’t you just go around telling all kinds of people, I want to be on the board, I want to be in a board, have any, that’s the quickest way to reduce your credibility.

That’s showing that you don’t know how to get on a board. It’s much more subtle and much more finessed. So what you need to do, and I show you how to do this, is I will show you how to look at all the colleagues you know, organize them into eight different categories, because it’s been my experience.

People in certain kinds of positions are the best ones to help you find the right kinds of opportunities and the right kinds of fit for you too. That’s another very important thing is we go through a whole thought process about where’s the best fit for you. So then I would show you how [00:20:00] approach the each category of type of person correctly so that you don’t turn them off.

So that you present yourself at the board level and have that credibility when you’re having that conversation with them. So they’re not just looking at you as the manager that they’ve known you as, or the executive that they have known you as. And seeing you as a board director, and I’ll show you how to give a couple examples of the language that might be used just to position you from a board perspective versus an executive perspective.

Some people might say I’ve done a lot of project management is not what boards do. They are strategic. You can say I led 50 million dollar projects towards accomplishment. To prove [00:21:00] X amount of growth. Or whatever, or do or to do a turnaround or to create a greater efficiency.

So the focus is on leadership and outcome versus some of the language we have been trained to use as managers and executives, as you would say to your business person down the hall kind of conversation.

And one thing I have noticed as well as the difference between, yeah, the strategy and the operations boards. Don’t get operational in the business. They’re stepping back and looking at the strategy aspect, making sure that’s in place. We hope so. But let me give a couple of caveats on that one.

It depends on the maturity of the company or the non profit even. We have a phrase in the board world and that is, you should have your nose in and your hands out. [00:22:00] So that means you’re monitoring through reporting as to what’s going on. That’s the nose in part. But unless there’s a major problem, you keep your hands out and you advise through questioning, help the director of IT think through this transformation that they need to do or whatever.

Now, I’m going to take a different tack on that. If it is a young company or a nonprofit that doesn’t have much staff, you may need to be more hands on. You may need to get in there and be more operational. So it’s a question to ask when you look, when you’re considering a board opportunity of, is this a strategic board or an operational board?

Okay. Yeah, that’s a perspective. I hadn’t thought about it too much, but I guess you’re right. Yeah. And then on the [00:23:00] nonprofit side or small organizations. So are you getting a board position? Are you getting a job? Yeah, that’s right. Yes, exactly. And another thing your focus is also on work life balance and health and those kinds of things.

Challenges and Opportunities in Modern Board Governance

And I hate to say this, but non profit boards tend to be more dysfunctional than corporate boards. And that means that there can be more stress. Why is that? Because people who are serving on nonprofit boards often come there with the heart part of the care about Alzheimer’s disease, curing it, but they don’t know how to be on a nonprofit board or they come from a place of ego and they want to have their way.

And it can create all kinds of dysfunction amongst the people and even within the organization. So I’m a board consultant. 1 of the [00:24:00] things I do. Quite frankly, I get more board consulting engagements, but nonprofits. Then with corporates because of that. So I just give you that as a heads up. So that, for instance, let’s say you are investigating whether or not to be on a nonprofit board, try to check to find out how functional or healthy that board is and how it relates with each other or how it relates with the staff as well.

And how might you do that? You could ask when decisions are being made. How much discussion happens. And if there’s no discussion, that’s a problem. And then, if there’s a lot of discussion, and you say, are there factions on the board? Are there groups that tend to align with each other on certain board decisions?

That can talk about issues. That’s often when [00:25:00] I’m brought in. You can ask how does everyone participate in discussions? No, it’s basically just Janelle. She just talks all the time. It’s again, finding out if there’s a dominating personality on the board is another way. To find out and another way is, I’m sorry, go ahead.

No, go ahead. Is an interview the CEO or president of the organization or the company and ask them, how do they view their relationship with the board and what you’re looking for it? Do they view them as partners? Advisors, or do they view them as adversaries? That’s a really good point. Yeah, because seeing how you mentioned the dominant personality and I’ve seen it in a couple boards that I’ve been on to [00:26:00] is whether it’s the head of the organization CEO, or whatever that is on the board as the company representative there.

Leading the charge and they’re very dictatorial and sometimes the board cows to that and really doesn’t call them and doesn’t do their fiduciary duty. Yeah, absolutely. And it sometimes it takes guts. To stand up to a powerful personality. So do you have the guts to do that? And diplomatically, of course.

So often that requires a lot of thought ahead of time about, how can you bring up something diplomatically and whatever, and that’s part of the 200 hours is thinking through how to really have an impact in a positive way. Understanding there’s power plays. Whenever you get two people together, there can be power issues.

Yeah, and if you think there are politics in companies, [00:27:00] there are politics on boards, and that’s just part of the navigating that we have to do through pretty much every aspect of life. It’s high school in suits. Yes, absolutely. I was just thinking about some mistakes people make when they decide that they want to be on a board again.

Part of it is to get ask themselves. Why do I want to be on a board is because I want the ego. I want to be able to say I’m on a board. That can be a valid aspect. But how what percentage is that? Is that 10 or 20 percent or is that 100%? Looking to, your, what it is you’d like to bring your helping aspect.

You’re helping to make the world a better place or the company better place, those kinds of things. And some of this comes out during the interview process. I coach people through interviews. [00:28:00] So another mistake that I’ve noticed that some people make who are coming from their ego is that they say, I don’t need any advice about going through.

I’ve done hundreds of interviews. An executive interview or job interview is different than a board interview. So I had one man come to me. He said, I’ve had four first interviews for boards of directors. I never got past. So I talked with him about how he presents himself. He presented himself ego first, so I had to work with him.

On other motivations and respecting others intelligence, he’s not the smartest person in the room. Other people are intelligent, those kinds of things. It’s, it has nuances to it that are different.

And that, yeah, you make a great point and why do people want to be part of boards? Is it part of the career trajectory? Is it part of. [00:29:00] Giving back the, their passion for this particular topic. What are some of the, what are some of the other mistakes that people make before you had mentioned the the not having a board resume versus just a traditional resume?

And some of the verbages, but what are some of the other common ones as they people get into this, they don’t realize it’s going to take a while. In some ways, it’s almost like getting a master’s degree. There’s a lot to learn. For instance, I advocate that you start getting some newsletters or magazines and journals that have to do with boards.

So you start to get a mindset that has to do with what it’s like to be in the boardroom and the issues that they face and how they address them. In addition to that, it can take a long time. Let’s say it’s a publicly held company or a large company. They plan in advance a year to fill a position.

So it can take [00:30:00] one or two years to get on a big company board. So they get people get impatient waiting and there can be a lot of document exchange, another challenge with it is at least here in the United States. There are rules and regulations when you’re being interviewed for a job about questions that they cannot ask you.

However, for a board interview, there are none. That means, yes, that means that they can ask you about your family, your relatives, where they work. They want to make sure that there are no skeletons in your closet that will end up being a part of a bad reputation that would come reflect on the company.

And do any of your relatives work for the competition? So there’s a variety of those kinds of questions that you might initially be offended by [00:31:00] that you need to be prepared for that I would help you with in preparations for the interviews. And sometimes the interviews will be done by the whole nominations committee at once, and there’ll be firing questions at you.

Just a variety of challenging situations through the process that I help coach people through. And what are typical people would serve on a board for? Good question. Generally it’s multiple years and each non profit or corporation will have a stipulation of term or some don’t have.

Both non profit and corporate. Some don’t, they should. Good governance says you should, but it’s amazing how many private companies that there are no term limits whatsoever. And very often in private companies, they view it as a long term commitment. It could be 20 years. It could be 10 years [00:32:00] in a, especially like a family held company.

You become like a part of the family. So it’s, it is that long term commitment there. However, please know that you should be ready to walk and leave a board at any time, if you think that they’re doing something illegal, unethical, or that you don’t believe in is the right way to do things. So no matter what the term is, you can, you have a right at any time to leave.

And that’s, I think that’s aligned with what people ideally join boards for is to make a difference and how do we balance the, I’m here to make a difference and walking away when you feel you can’t. Yeah, [00:33:00] absolutely. I’ve been amazed at how many nonprofits have things like sexual harassment.

Even organizations that you would totally not expect it that there can be things going on inside the organization. Discrimination that when you find it out, you could be very helpful with helping to clean it up. Yeah, if you want to take that part of the challenge, but it may not have been what you originally signed on for, because you thought you would be helping with a health kind of challenge versus internal issues.

But you may discover that and ask yourself, am I willing that if I find out that they’re that the CEO is stealing money with dealing with that, if the CFO is stealing money, most fraud is done by either the CEO or CFO or the two of them together. So that’s part of your fiduciary responsibility is watching over that.

And [00:34:00] what are some of the conflicts that you’ve seen come up? You mentioned that.

The Future of Board Diversity and Inclusion

Diversity in the corporate social responsibility has been 1 of the biggest changes over the past 20 years. We’d like to, in a ideal world, think that. That’s all been received well at the board level.

What are some of the challenges that you’re seeing with more diverse boards and more women on boards? It’s still lower compared to what it should be. But how are some of those changes happening? Let’s say a woman is the first woman to go on an all male board. She should be prepared not be heard that the points that she makes, they will say, and then move on or someone else will make the same point later.

And everybody else said, Oh, that’s a good idea. And she’ll be thinking, I just said that five minutes ago. Didn’t you hear me? But, quite frankly, we’ve been used to that [00:35:00] throughout our whole career. And I, before I gave a presentation once about boards, a woman came up to me ahead of time and she said, have times changed our boards now going to really listen to us women on the boards.

I had to say to her, you have to still fight the same battles that you’ve been fighting all the way up through all the glass ceilings you’ve broken through already. It can be even sturdier of a glass ceiling. In the boardroom, but by now you should have learned diplomacy and how to stand up and persistence to keep pushing forward to help make a change happen, even in the board dynamics on how they are with hearing you, for instance, and there’s been some interesting studies that the more women there are on the board, how that increases, how women are listened to on the [00:36:00] board.

If a woman can get on the, to chair the nominations committee, that can cause the quickest change in dynamics on a board, bringing in women, more women than minorities, and also paying attention to that in the leadership of the company and shifting the culture. So that can be a very powerful position to be in.

There’s so many. Studies and research and practical applications of how creativity and profitability and all these benefits that happen in, at the, in the company. Level from diversity and inclusion, and it makes perfect sense that the same would happen with the boards, but I think that’s been slower to change.

Absolutely. Insurance industry is. Famous for the senior white male stereotype. There was an, a [00:37:00] woman CEO and chair of the board of an insurance company on the East coast that was the only insurance company that was able to turn themselves around within a couple of days when COVID shutdowns happened because she had repaired the company for emergencies.

She had the foresight and the guts to be open to think through what if scenarios every quarter so that they were prepared for all kinds of what ifs, so that everybody already had laptops that they could take home, and they were ready to continue business as usual.

Yeah, diversity of thought, diversity of experience is so valuable and [00:38:00] What do you think you’ve seen lots of changes so far. How far still do you think it has to come until we’re at the point where it’s common practice? In the United States, we have not really had quota regulations like they have in Europe and other countries.

That was the fastest way that some countries, I’m going to call it overnight, although they would give them a couple of years to make that transition to get to equity, we would call it like 50 percent representing the population. We’re not there yet. We are getting better. We need to get a lot more women and minorities on boards, and in our cultures our work cultures as well.

And non profits need to do the same, some non profits are better than others, but some of them are still old school, big moneyed, focused. On some charities, it will be [00:39:00] big money to people. Their focus is always you got to bring 10, 000 to the board. And there’s no one on the board representing the people who they are helping, let’s say immigrants.

So they don’t have that perspective on the board. So that’s why the micro donation companies are eating their lunch and taking all the donations. Yes. To still continue to look at themselves to ask and ask themselves this question. Are we relevant?

Are we really being responsible for our mission, whether it’s corporate or nonprofit, they all have a mission.

And diversity of thought and experience and is going to help, take the blinders off in a [00:40:00] lot of cases, because when you have that. Mono focus, mono thought on, Hey, we’ve just gonna keep doing what we’re doing. That’s where you get the blind spots and a lot of times people aren’t even aware of you.

The group, the idea of a blind spot, the group think yes. . Yeah. And so the people who are quote in the category of diverse need to have, again, diplomatic guts to challenge my own thinking. So that’s those important skills for someone who’s coming up in that category. Now, you had mentioned, you, you do coaching and helping people work through how to get on boards and set themselves up for success.

Are there courses people can take as well? To do this and what ones are out there? I offer courses. I usually do them through other corporations right now. I don’t have any on the docket coming up, [00:41:00] but I would suggest that quite frankly, the best way for most people is to do a one on one because it’s customized to their needs.

So that if wherever you are in your career, I work with you there to help you fast track to your goal of being on the right kind. Or the best fit of a board for you, whether it’s a first nonprofit or whether it’s the first corporate or whether it’s your second corporate. Sometimes some people through what I would call serendipity get on their first corporate board.

Their college buddy says, Hey, come be on my board. You say, sure. I was just thinking I wanted to be on a board and they take it. Maybe they shouldn’t, because it really may not be the best fit for them. And it might be hard to hold your buddy responsible for dysfunction of some sort or another. But again, I help you think through your strategy and make sure it’s going to be a good fit.

And it’s something we do over [00:42:00] time. I’m a very practical person. So they, I take you step by step. So you feel the progress. You can see the accomplishments as you’re going along and you’re in control so that whenever you are ready, you’re doing it. I like to set it up so that you won’t need me later on.

You’ll know how to build your board portfolio as you may want to have one board on the side right now. Let’s say you’re working full time and you want to have one corporate board. And then, but as you mature in your career, you may want to have two or three or four boards you want to be on in retirement.

It’s a great retirement strategy. So that you would put your schedule out there for quarterly meetings, you’d work with each one, but yeah, you would have independence being a retired person to travel more and those kinds of things.

Nice career strategy. These are, [00:43:00] yeah, exactly. And the skills you’ve talked about is how to position yourself and the, how to build your resume and some of the verbiage you use. What about the, I guess the practical skills once you’re in the board, like the. Understanding the governments and the governance and the structure and things like that.

How do people learn those, especially if they’re new, and they might not have experience with that in an executive position. Sure, there are a lot of organizations will teach you about board governance. Their universities very often have programs. The National Association of Corporate Directors has programs their online programs so check them all out.

There’s a variety of different approaches again, it depends on what you’re looking for and again, if I work with someone one on one, I could give you some guidance, but I will also tell you that I do help some of my clients once they are on a board with board governance issues. I also have a board governance assessment [00:44:00] that I put people through.

So it’s a questionnaire that helps for a person to see what their current knowledge level is around their board contribution and fiduciary responsibilities and those kinds of things. So then they would know what areas they need to study up on. So it’s very targeted in that way. But the board governance is something to be constantly studying.

I find it fascinating. I’m a board nerd. I was just reading an article over breakfast about some board issues, but it’s fascinating. It’s intellectually stimulating. And if you like, your passion for it comes out, yeah, your passion for it is loud and clear. And I love that. I love speaking with people that are so passionate about what they do.

As I’ve been on boards over the years, I’ve seen the, both the power and the [00:45:00] dysfunction of some, and it’s fascinating to me. And I’d love to see how boards can positively impact the organization or the business that they’re working with. And for me, that’s something that’s a plan and a progression that I wanted my career as well.

And I’ve been on not for profit boards so far. I’m curious to see what the corporate board’s and how that’s different. It’s very exciting. So Janelle, what we, I could keep talking about this for a long time, but I know I’m conscious of our time. What can people do to find out more and find you online?

Where are you located online? I am at Janelle. My email is Janelle, J A N E L E. at BoardDynamicPerformance. com. I know it’s a long one there. So Janelle at DynamicPerformance. com. [00:46:00] And my website is BoardDynamicPerformance. com. So you can go to that website and learn more about the variety of board related coaching and services that I offer.

And I was thinking about, the best reason for people to be on boards. Is that they should believe in the organization and or the company, love the product, love the service that let’s say the company makes or does. That you should respect the people on the board and that you should want to have a greater impact and with those kinds of motivations that will affect the questions you ask as you’re going through the process, and again, and I can help guide you through it.

There’s a lot to do. There’s a lot to learn. And. I work with all levels of managers and executives to help them along this way. So again and I can offer to you a free 30 minute conversation. So let’s say you’d like to [00:47:00] explore this and you’re saying let me check this out. That you can simply email me and let me know that you’re interested.

Or so connect with me on LinkedIn. Again, Janelle Britton, J A N E L E. And then Britton is like Great Britain, only two T’s. I have more T than they do. But at any rate you can request a 30 minute free consultation. To check and see, is this for me or is this for me at this time in my career?

I’d be glad to get to know you along these lines. And that’s a very generous offer. And thank you so much. I’ll make sure that goes in the show notes and I can put a direct link to your LinkedIn and and the website as well. So fantastic. I might probably take you up with that myself. All right, let’s do it.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. And what’s 1 last obviously the consultation, the 1st step that that [00:48:00] people can take.

Taking the First Step: Advice for Aspiring Board Members

What’s one word of advice you have for really those new leaders out there that are thinking I could never ever be on a board? What’s one advice you have for them?

Make it a New Year’s resolution that you will put it in your career plan to serve on a board of directors, whether it’s non profit Whether it’s private tell you 1 quick story. I had a 28 year old young woman get on a corporate advisory board. Why, because she was a young person, and she fit the type of market segment that they wanted to grow in.

They were recruiting people who were in their 20s to advise them on how to sell to that group. And that was a paid board. [00:49:00] So there’s all different kinds of options. And again, and I can help you find them depending on how you would like to serve. But as a new year’s resolution, put it on your career plan and start to take a step forward.

Love it. And you bring up a great point is that the. With the diversity and bringing new thought processes and people onto boards, there are opportunities that were not present even five, 10 years ago. And so to be able to open your mind to the fact that, Hey, boards are looking for these people and why not me?

Why not? Why not apply? Be part of the change process. Yeah. Why not you? Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you so much. It has been fantastic speaking with you and I will make sure people get your offer of free consultation. I’ll put that [00:50:00] in the show notes and thank you again. So wonderful chatting with you.

And I’m so excited about the mission you have with helping people to blossom to their best, whether it’s health, career, mind, it’s all wrapped up in helping each person be their best.

Wrapping Up: The Journey to Board Membership

Thank you so much to know that wraps up another episode of the working well podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Which guests or topics would you like to see featured on the show? Message me through LinkedIn or on the contact page of timborys. com. Thank you for tuning in. I’m Tim Borys with Fresh Group and look forward to seeing you on the next episode.