Her Magazine is New Zealand’s only women’s business lifestyle magazine! Her Magazine highlights the achievements of successful and rising New Zealand businesswomen. Her Magazine encourages a healthy work/life balance.
Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaleditions.com/i/86221
:get on board Get on board WHETHER YOU'VE STEPPED UP to an executive team or stepped out to start your own business, you probably learnt (possibly the hard way) that just throwing yourself in at the deep end is not the most effective way of ensuring personal success. Entrepreneurs go looking for support in developing their business plan, while increasingly, organisations engage coaches like ours to help their new managers 'on-board' successfully, because 40-50% of new hires do not come up to scratch and they don't want to be part of that statistic! But what if the appointment you are facing is a board role? You are already successful, have learnt a lot, have wisdom to share, and that's why it's only right that you are asked to join a board isn't it? You must already be equipped surely? We think otherwise, and with the push to have more women on boards in NZ, it's important that those that step up to serve have the best chance to succeed. The dynamics of a board, and the basis of relationships that you will find there, can be a little different to the team environments that you may have found within business. So if you've taken the step, it's time to think about 'on-boarding to the board'. Using our 'On-Boarding' principles, our coaches would say that the best place to start is by laying out a plan. The act of planning is founded on asking yourself a lot of questions and we call this the 'Get Aware' phase because what you are looking to flush out is what you do know and what you don't know. Many people are asked to join boards because of a skill or specialism, but when they get there, that focus can be their downfall as much as their strength because it becomes too easy to get involved in the operational detail instead of working at a governance level. The key to this, like any role, is to be clear on what the board role is before you start, and to work through how that aligns to your experiences, strengths, weaknesses and modus operandi. If you've not held a board role before, then you are unlikely to really understand the role, so now that you are aware, it's time to 'Get Smart' and plan how you will prepare yourself for the very different focus of the board role. Another area that may be part of your plan is that of board relationships. Unlike an executive team, you won't spend every day in the same building alongside your new colleagues with many opportunities to connect, chat casually, work together in pairs, or even be promoted on a parallel career path. Your interactions are weeks apart and often purely around the board table. The dynamic becomes very different as a result, and if you are the new member you will often be thrown together with people who have engaged in this way over many years, with the learning and history that entails. Like any situation involving people, your board will have developed its own 'dynamic'. Some boards may be adversarial, some rely on powerful advocacy, some have cliques, and few are harmoniously collaborative. So part of your planning may be how you 'Get Connected' by getting up to speed with those relationships quickly and understanding the dynamic you are joining. There are many other topics that you will want to add to your 'On-Boarding' plan, but let's move the timeline forward and take a look at how the conversation with your Board-Coach may evolve after your first couple of 'On-Boarding' meetings. By now, you will have 38 | www.hermagazine.co.nz Moving from job to job you learn quickly that each brings with it new challenges immersed yourself in months of previous minutes, found out what the key issues are, scrutinised the strategy for robustness, got your mind round the accounts and KPIs and begun to understand the people you have around you. So are you all set for your term? You were not asked to join the board to blend into the background. You are there to make an impact. That impact may have been initially some core skills that you have, but boards rely on more than just technical experience. Once you have begun to understand the board, it's time to reflect on the impact that you can make to it. We call this 'Getting Real' and it's the time to look at what else you can bring to the table, and what the board needs from you. What is your 'Board Brand'? What other talents do you have that you can bring, that haven't been seen? Some boards need a Devil's Advocate to break down comfortable consensus, whilst others need a connector that builds on other ideas, or a peacemaker, or an analyst. There are many styles that bring diversity and balance to the board as much as the more obvious forms of diversity, so the question to ask is 'Which one are you?' You may want to remember that your approach to your first board role is the brand that will form the basis of your reputation, so working it through with your Board-Coach early on is better than finding out about it later. With these few examples of the kind of topics that arise in 'Board On-Boarding', you can see that the best way to be successful in joining a board is to start by having a plan and preparing for what you may face. You might not have all the answers on the day you begin your board career, but you may find them quicker because you started out by taking a proactive approach, seeking advice, getting support and ensuring you ask yourself the right questions. To start your Board Readiness Programme or to find out more about On-Boarding into a new role, contact Martin Fenwick (martin@ altris.co.nz) or Jayne Muller (jayne@altris.co.nz). Altris delivers tailored leadership development built on coaching based philosophies. They provide a range of Executive Coaching programmes based on their unique Accelerated Coaching approach, including 'On-Boarding for Boards' and new managers, coaching high potential leaders, women returning to the workplace as well as leadership coaching of senior personnel.