Personal Board of Directors
Howard-Stevenson's replacement for the single-mentor model. The premise: no one person covers all of life well enough to be your one advisor. Instead, assemble a board — 6-7 people whose advice you value in specific, non-overlapping domains.
Why a Single Mentor Doesn't Exist
Stevenson's evidence from an internal HBS resource-allocation survey: every faculty member was asked to name mentors in three categories (teaching, research, course development). Results:
- Nobody received more than 17 mentions, even though everyone could name three names. Mentoring is hard work; few people actually do it at scale.
- Very few were mentioned in all three categories. Domain expertise doesn't transfer.
- Some people who believed they were mentors were never mentioned by anyone. They were giving advice; it wasn't being received or valued.
The practical conclusion: the all-domain mentor you're looking for doesn't exist, and the ones who think they are that person are often the least effective.
How to Build the Board
Ask for each candidate: what is this person's particular skill, and where specifically do I value their advice?
If you can't answer that question, they're not a board member yet — they're a general acquaintance. The board is assembled by domain, not by general admiration or relationship closeness.
Stevenson's personal example: there are people he wouldn't ask about personal life because he doesn't admire their personal life, but whose professional judgment he trusts completely. Those are board members for specific domains, not universal advisors.
Six to seven is approximately the manageable limit. More than that and you can't maintain the relationships that make the advice worth taking.
The Domain Split
Domains that typically need distinct board members:
- Career strategy and professional development
- Financial decisions and wealth
- Personal relationships and family
- Health and longevity
- Creative or intellectual work
- Spiritual or values-based questions
A board member for one does not automatically qualify for another. A brilliant investor may have a wreck of a marriage. A wise family elder may have no understanding of your industry.
Connections
- four-dimensions-of-success — the four dimensions benefit from different kinds of advice; one person rarely covers all four
- match-quality — the right board member is also a match-quality question: their advice is only as good as their domain fit
- talk-in-terms-of-interests — when seeking advice, understanding what drives the advisor helps you interpret what they tell you