How a personal board of directors can help your career

Serendipity is one of my favorite words. Whenever I read it, hear it - or better yet, experience it, I'm filled with satisfaction and excitement. It confirms that some things in this complicated world are simply meant to be.

Merriam-Webster defines serendipity as "the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for."

When I first delved into the difference between serendipity, fate and luck, I realized that while serendipity is a wonderful occurrence, career success requires much more intentionality. One proven ingredient on the road to success is the personal board of directors.

If this is the first you've heard of the concept, here's a little background. The career board of directors was first introduced by Jan Torrisi-Mokwa in her book, Building Career Equity. She explains that a personal board is not the same as simply having a variety of mentors who are senior professionals in your industry.

As described by Susan Stelter in a Wall Street Journal article, "the goal is to put together a group of people with experiences completely distinct from your own who can offer you a fresh perspective when needed." Ideally, the people you choose for your board should have different backgrounds, different jobs and different skills than you.

You don't want people who know exactly what you know or do what you do; you want people you can learn from and who are willing to give you honest, constructive feedback. When creating your board, it's important to reflect on your strengths, your weaknesses, and your aspirations, but also on your personal blind spots or proverbial Achilles' heel.

Unlike a formal board of directors with traditional guidelines and strict rules concerning qualifications, elections, and terms, a career board is much more flexible, allowing every individual to build a unique board that meets their personal career needs at any given time.

The beauty of a personal board is that the group never needs to meet formally or hold a vote on plans and actions. Members can come and go over the years with no strict timelines and contribute on an as-needed basis. Often, career board members start as trusted advisers but then develop closer relationships and even friendships over time.

While building a personal board requires more deliberate effort than finding your posse or tribe, serendipity can still (and often does) play a role. Recently, while attending a holiday event for association professionals, a colleague who has been on my career board for more than two decades and I ended up sharing a dinner table with two young human resources professionals.

They were anxious to hear about how we met, why we have such a close connection, and how we have achieved so many of our career goals. We embraced the opportunity to share our professional journeys and provide guidance about what steps we recommend they take to boost their own careers.

The first thing we encouraged them to do was to make building their personal boards a priority. My colleague and I offered our willingness to be part of those boards or to simply provide support along the way.

The take-away is that while serendipity can play a role in the process, as it did in this wonderful impromptu dinner conversation, relying on serendipity, fate or luck is not a proven method for reaching goals. Instead, put your energy into creating and nurturing a career board. It's guaranteed to deliver a high return on investment.