Personal board

I've been thinking recently about boards of directors and how useful they can be. A lot of a board's responsibilities are fairly procedural: budget approval, compensation, mergers & acquisitions, auditing, and so on. However, they also have an important role in guidance, oversight and setting the direction of the organisation. How useful that is depends on how much you trust that board, of course, but a well-functioning board can be an important resource for making and evaluating good long-term decisions.

So if it works for companies, why not for people? You could approach some friends with a demonstrated capacity for good advice and ask them to form your personal board. Unlike an actual board of directors, there'd be no legal liability or boring procedural work. There'd also, hopefully, be no capacity for firing you, though obviously if you don't ever listen to them they might resign. Their role would be purely to offer oversight and advice.

I think, if implemented correctly, this could be a really useful idea. It's important to keep evaluating what your goals are and whether your actions are supporting them, and having a group of people meet regularly for that purpose seems like a great way to do that and stay accountable to it. As well, it'd be useful to have a structured way to approach big decisions or changes, acting as a sounding board (heh) and challenging your ideas.

I'm sure it'd be fairly confronting at first. Most people, me included, aren't used to having their personal decisions and actions scrutinised, or having to justify them. But, why not? If you are confident that you're making those decisions in a way that furthers your goals, then there's nothing to worry about. And, if you're not, maybe it's better to find out and correct it sooner rather than later.