I was honored to be invited to be on Keith Weaver’s “The Top Executive Strategy Podcast” recently. We talked about how to “Get the Most Value From Your Board”.
To listen to the podcast, Episode #138, go here. Or you can watch the video of our discussion below.
Some notes from our conversation are below.
Keith Weaver Q: What’s the best thing about being a business leader?
Nicole’s A: Entrepreneurship is a tremendously creative endeavor and the privilege is to change the world, whether our corner of the world is the world’s best cupcake or working to cure cancer. That to me is the best thing about being a business leader.
Or watch a summary of the conversation
Q: I hear from other leaders that people strategy can be more of a challenge than the actual business strategy. Your thoughts?
A: Leadership is the heart of every business and a core piece of that is creating a productive, inclusive, open, creative culture where each employee can bring their perspective, their experiences, their vision and their insights and find those welcomed and valued.
Creating that type of culture is hard – and it must be deliberate and requires significant effort and commitment, it requires mentoring, it requires thoughtfulness and requires frankly great heart. You have to really care to make a great culture.
Q: What strategy do you want to share with other leaders?
A: My question: How to get the most value out of your Board of Directors and Board of Advisors as a CEO or Founder
I am a Corporate Director, I am a CEO Coach as well as author and professional speaker. As I talk to entrepreneurs and CEOs, it has become clear to me that Boards of Directors and Advisors are an enormous untapped resource.
Boards include very experienced individuals who have a vested interest in your success! They have signed up to help you be successful and they are waiting to be asked. They want to respect your role and your decision making, many of them are either current or former CEOs, so they will often NOT parachute in or challenge you in the Board room. But they would be delighted if you called them up or dropped an email and asked for their advice.
Why wouldn’t you ask them for their help?
Don’t view your Board just as “oversight”, leverage their experience!
Q: A fun question. Tell me about your favorite past boss?
A: Well, he wasn’t really a boss, but when I was at Stanford doing my MBA, author Jim Collins of Good to Great and Built to Last fame was one of my professors and I had the privilege of writing a case with him. It was an extraordinary learning experience
You can also watch the video on your favorite social media site:
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6802625862249402368
or Facebook https://www.facebook.com/184604472096495/videos/3927732513949034
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