How to leverage a successful board offer?

In my recent article, I discussed what to do before accepting a board appointment. This article explains how to leverage that offer to secure additional board appointments.

Leverage your success to create your next board opportunity

Regardless of whether you decide to accept the role, a successful board interview can be leveraged to create new, perhaps more suitable, board opportunities.

Being offered a board role, you are now in a terrific position to access these new and often hidden board opportunities by circling back to the Non-Executive Directors (NEDs) you spoke to when researching information about the role you were applying for/targeting. Here is why:

1. In the first instance, it is simply a nice thing to do – thanking people for their help and letting them know that they were part of your success. Oh, and in doing so, you are very neatly telling that others think you are of value at board level. 
2. Reconnecting allows you to nurture the relationship you’ve established and keeps you in the loop about current or future board opportunities.
3. It may have been some months since you last spoke. As such, things may have changed both in terms of how you might be able to help and the tenure of the boards they sit on.
4. Finally, having just been offered a board role means that an organisation has independently verified your value at board level. That alone is worth bragging about. With your value independently verified, other NEDs are much more likely to recommend you to others.

Reading between the lines, an offer of a new appointment provides an opportunity to create leverage relationships and, in particular, develop weak ties. Remember ~50% of all board appointments are made through weak ties. With your new appointment in hand and under the guise of proactively preparing for your first board meeting, you can legitimately reach out. For example, you can reach out and connect with the Non-Executive Directors of:

• The NEDs of stakeholder and client organisations – introduce yourself, and be curious about what their experience has been like working with the organisation and, importantly, the other boards they sit on (remember 80% of boards only fill their board vacancies informally – never advertising or using recruiters). 
• Your new NED peers – the existing board members. Leverage your board interview success by reaching out to them, introducing yourself, and being curious about what they are doing.

Contact them by email or phone, or suggest catching up for coffee. Meeting face-to-face is more powerful and shows genuine appreciation. It may take more time and effort, but it develops the relationship better than just a phone call. It is easy to do, it is appreciated, and it works. More importantly, it is rarely done, so it has the added benefit of making you memorable.

Conclusion

The board interview process can be long and arduous, so a successful outcome is certainly worth celebrating. The challenge here is developing relationships authentically and legitimately. Reconnecting with those who helped you gain the appointment and making new board-level connections to those associated with the new organisation is easy and powerful.

Related Articles

What to do after a successful board interview?

Weak ties: the silver bullet for a board appointment?

The 4 Ways Board Appointments are Made