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Introduction
Traditional company boards are a well-recognized feature of management in most types of modern organization. Boards have a number of key roles to play: setting strategic goals and directions; hiring and performance managing executive officers; ensuring legal compliance in all aspects of the business; assisting the senior management team; identifying and mitigating risks; ensuring that sound financial practices are used; and numerous other tasks necessary for good governance and effective oversight. But can using a team of skilled directors also produce benefits in other contexts? We believe that they can and would like you to meet the microboard - an application of boardroom principles designed to produce results for individuals rather than companies.
What, exactly, is a microboard? The concept is essentially simple: a small group of committed people who gather around a single individual to help him or her to clarify and realize dreams, hopes and visions. Working as a team, they develop deep and reciprocal relationships with the individual, while helping to support that individual with a particular long-term series of goals.
The notion of applying boardroom approaches to individuals is somewhat counter-cultural. Western societies regularly portray successful individuals as largely independent and self-sufficient, attributing these characteristics as significant to their success. Many non-Western cultures more readily recognize that each and every person - including highly successful individuals - benefits in many ways from the support, assistance, advice and input of other people in order to achieve their dreams and goals.
By adapting board-governance approaches, microboards demonstrate that better outcomes can be achieved when a group of people intentionally and deliberately works together to benefit a single individual. As we will show, they demonstrate that a collective approach can make a big difference. In some cases, microboards may succeed where more traditional approaches that rely on single advisors, coaches, mentors, large provider agencies or other professionals may fail.
This paper describes the history of microboards and discusses the key concepts and features that underpin their operation. We describe how microboards have proved to be effective for individuals whose lives are directly affected by disability, especially in Canada. Finally, we examine how microboard principles and practices might also be applied to emerging entrepreneurs and small-business operators.
History, concepts and features
The first...