How long will it take to gain a board appointment?

How long will it take me to gain a board appointment? This is a question I am asked regularly, but it is difficult to answer. However, when reflecting on the process of gaining a board appointment, it is often true that, in most cases, “the harder you work, the luckier you will get”.

While I recognise this is a fairly flippant statement, it is also, on many occasions, not true. I have seen many examples of individuals working extremely hard and not getting ‘lucky’ at all. So, what does getting lucky, in this context, mean?

The four reasons why you are not getting a board appointment

Regardless of whether you are trying to secure your first board role, a subsequent appointment, a paid board role, or develop a board portfolio, if gaining a board appointment is taking longer to eventuate than you expected, it is likely because you are making one or more of four mistakes.

1. You are targeting the wrong organisations.
2. Your board pitch just isn’t compelling.
3. You are doing the same things over and over, expecting a different outcome.
4. You are just waiting for a board appointment to come to you.

If this sounds familiar, then things need to change.

Change #1 – Realistic board aspirations

It is paramount that you establish realistic board aspirations. Too many people I speak with chase unrealistic board goals or, worse still, have no idea what organisations they could sit on the board of. In both scenarios, I encounter people who pursue board opportunities that they believe they could add value to but, in reality, are unlikely to get appointed due to limited experience, the wrong skill set or industry experience, or simply insufficient expertise.

Start by asking yourself – Can I name target organisations I want and could be appointed to the board? Tackling this question honestly and with rigour is the first and arguably most substantial thing you can do to fundamentally transform how long it will take you to get a board appointment. Not least of which is because it provides a focus and prevents you from getting sidetracked.

Change #2 – Hone your board pitch

You must be compelling when you present yourself to one of your target organisations, a Non-Executive Director who might be able to help, a recruiter or respond to an advertised board opportunity. Whether that presentation is in the form of a Board CV, a cover letter, during an interview, or in a water cooler moment, you must have a compelling pitch.

For example, If I met you at a governance event and asked, ‘Why do you want to be a NED?’. How would you respond? Most people at this point tell me they would handle this conversation quite well. However, as I dig a little deeper, I see that this is often not the case. More often or not, people speak about their own motivations instead of addressing the motivators of those in a position to help you obtain a board role. So, if you are saying something like…

• I think this is where I can add the most value,
• This is the next step in my career,
• My peers are telling me I should consider a board role,
• My peers are on boards, so I thought I should be too, or
• I want to diversify my career.

… then you are making a mistake, and frankly, you are hindering your chances of making the right impression. Here is the problem. You are putting yourself in the same category as thousands of others who want a board role but don’t articulate what their value is. Instead, you must pivot your perspective. You need to deliver a pitch, interview question response and board application that addresses the motivations of the decision-makers. Desiring a board role does not separate you from your competitors or make you a compelling candidate.

Change #3 – Stop doing the same thing over and over

Have you been writing applications for role after role that you are passionate about, where you know you could add value, but only to receive countless standard ‘thank you, but no thank you’ responses or, worse, just silence? Or are you continuing to search for roles on websites that everyone else is looking at and then apply, knowing that you have hundreds of others who are probably doing the same thing? If that sounds like your experience, then know that you are not alone, as this seems the logical way to find and gain a board role. However, this approach will drastically lengthen the time it takes to gain that board role you want. You need to stop doing this.

Change #4 – Adopt a proactive approach

You need to adopt a proactive approach that is planned and sustainable. Stop waiting for roles to be presented to you. Instead, directly approach the organisation you both want and believe you could be appointed to, leverage the power of your existing relationships, and, more importantly, develop new ones focused around your target companies. By taking this approach, you will unlock the 80%+ of board roles filled informally – without advertising or recruiters.

By taking this approach and following a simple and easy-to-implement board search process, you will:

Find board roles that others simply can not; Find board roles that will be better suited to you and your skills and experience; Get appointed more quickly and more often, Get a greater return on your investment of time and Get lucky…

Take my advice to work more efficiently and ‘get lucky’

When clients follow my advice and gain a board role, they often reflect that they felt like they simply ‘got lucky’. This is rarely the case. What is luck? In this context, luck is where preparation meets the right opportunity. So, asking ‘How long will it take?’ is, I believe, the wrong question. Instead, you ask yourself and answer three questions:

1. Can I name 12 companies or organisations I both want and believe I could be appointed to?
2. Can I articulate in a compelling fashion the reasons I should be appointed to these boards? Focusing on two statements – “At board level I … (what you would deliver if appointed)’ and ‘I do that by …. (evidence of how you would make an impact)
3. Who and how do I approach individuals in and around my target organisations to unlock board vacancies that they might know of or have access to?

Now, how long will it take?

People think gaining a board appointment is a journey. A journey suggests a long, winding, pleasant exercise with a far-off destination. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Conceptualising it as a journey will get you off track, delay your success and often lead to frustration and quitting long before you get an appointment.

Instead, you must understand that gaining a board appointment – your first, subsequent or board career – is a process. If you get the process right, a board appointment within 12 months should be your firm expectation. However, your aspiration should be a board appointment far sooner than that.

Examples of success from following a clearly defined process

A current NED Program member was appointed to the board of a commercial transport/infrastructure board within three months of becoming a member by taking a proactive and planned approach. We carefully crafted his board application specifically for the role, walked him through the people he needed to speak with and prepared him for the board interview by conducting a mock interview session.

One of our Executive members sent me this note just yesterday. “Thank you so much for all your assistance, David. Your expertise in reviewing my CV and interview preparation has paid dividends. Your services and wisdom are priceless. This application was my third board application.”

Still, another NED program member sent me a very simple text when they were appointed to their first paid board. They were just months into the NED Program. The message read, ‘The process works!’

The next steps

The evidence is pretty clear – our process works. Our Executive package and the NED Program drive this sort of success. Both are designed to be completed over 12 months. We have found that 12 months is a practical amount of time to define and target the right opportunities and then implement a sustainable and achievable process to get you appointed to those opportunities – regardless of your skills, aspirations or experience level.

About the Author

David Schwarz?is CEO, of the Board Appointments Group (UK USA APAC AU) – a leading board advertising and non-executive career support firm. He has over a decade of experience in putting people on boards as an international headhunter and a non-executive recruiter and has interviewed over one thousand non-executives and placed hundreds into some of the most significant public, private and NFP roles in the world