In Part One I discussed what a personal advisory board was and factors to consider. In this post I briefly walk you through the steps to create a personal advisory board.
Steps to Forming a Personal Advisory Board
Here are a few recommendations on the process of creating your personal advisory board:
One: Determine your goals for forming a personal advisory board. What is it you hope to achieve with the help of these three to five individuals? Your goals should be ones that are a real stretch for you. For instance, your goal might be to develop yourself as a manager/leader if you currently serve in a staff role or you might want to improve your ability to make better informed decisions if you are a manager with few peers and an overworked executive director who has little time to advise you.
You need to know what success will look like if you establish a personal advisory board. Goals and purpose are important to the people you will recruit. They too will want to know what it is you hope to achieve.
Two: Take an inventory of what you do well and what you do not do so well. If you are committed to growing as a manager and leader, you will need to be brutally honest with yourself. You may need to enlist the help of peers, review recent performance evaluations, and possibly take an online assessment. One of the best ways to achieve this is to complete a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats).
Three: Draft a short (300-500 word) profile that includes the type of person you are hoping to recruit and the goals you are trying to achieve. You need to be specific indicating traits, skills, education, employment background, and prominence even. The document needs to be one you would be comfortable emailing to people. Include a few sentences on how the advisors will benefit from assisting you and how you will repay their efforts (see step seven below).
Four: Determine whether you will meet in person or virtually and as a group or one-on-one. My preference is a group meeting where you will benefit from the synergy of several minds thinking together. However, depending on your goals, it may make sense to meet individually with advisors.
Five: Work out the meeting logistics, i.e. the what, where, how, and when. If it is a virtual meeting, you will need a conference line. If it’s an in-person meeting you will need a room location, snacks or a meal.
Other logistics to consider are how long will you meet, how often you will meet, what will the discussion focus on (your agenda), and what follow-on assistance do you need to request. Also schedule the next meeting or call.
Six: Whether you meet in person or virtually, you will need an agenda. An agenda provides focus to your meeting and gives all involved a way to measure what has been achieved at the meeting. Preparing the agenda will help you get focused and clear on what specifically you want to discuss and take-a-way from the meeting.
I recommend using a timed agenda where each segment of the meeting is given a specific amount of time in which to be covered. If there are materials the advisors will need to review prior to the meeting, prepare the agenda several days or weeks in advance of your meeting to allow you time to send advisors the materials.
Seven: Determine how you will thank your advisors. This can be in the form of a contribution to their favorite charity, being available to provide them with advice when needed, helping their child find an internship or the like. The thank you occurs after a period of service but no less frequently than annually.
If you follow the considerations discussed in Part One and steps you can be reaping the rewards of having an advisory board in a matter of months.
Susan C. Hammond, a former CFO/COO and expert on advisory boards, consults with CEOs of small to mid-size businesses and nonprofit organizations on the formation and facilitation of advisory boards and ways to enhance board governance. Susan is the author of the Advisory Board Kit: A Comprehensive Guide to Establishing an Advisory Board. You can reach Susan at susan@schammond.com. For more information and to download the e-book on personal advisory boards (available 3/2/12) please visit www.schammond.com/services.
