Pursuing Board Roles for Doctors: Essential Tips

Board Roles for Doctors

If you are a doctor considering whether a board role might be for you, or are already looking for your first board position then, you likely have some questions. Perhaps you are unsure that your experience would be valued by boards, or think that without existing board experience you would not be a strong candidate, or you don’t know which companies would value you, or you just don’t know where to begin. Whatever your thoughts I am sure that you have begun to wonder HOW that transition to becoming a Non-Executive Director (NED) might take place. If some of that rings true, let me reassure you that I know from my 20+ years of experience of putting people on Boards that most doctors have lots to offer suitable Boards. 

Why should doctors consider a board appointment?

If you haven’t considered a NED appointment, you should.

As a doctor there are many reasons you should consider a board appointment and for it to be part of a longer term career plan. Whilst doctors generally command higher degrees of job security and portability, we are typically seeing more and more doctors in Australia become dissatisfied with the traditional clinical career paths and health roles. Board roles for doctors can be a great way to add back in some variety and passion to your career. A board appointment can also help future proof your career, prepare for and stay relevant in retirement, support redundancy or a career change, offer the opportunity to ‘give back’, increase your ‘strategic’ expertise, diversify your network and can also offer a career in its own right (that pathway out of clinical medicine you may be craving). 

Perhaps the benefits of board roles for doctors were best summed up in a general study from Harvard Business Review that found that serving on a board increases a professional’s likelihood of being promoted by 44% and even if they weren’t promoted their annual pay increased by 13%. Further studies have also shown that those who hold a NED appointment in addition to an executive role: have greater job security and are unemployed less, and transition between jobs more easily. 

So the question is not ‘Should a board position be part of your career as a doctor? or ‘Is board appointment worth the effort?’ Rather, the questions you should want the answers to are ‘How do I find board opportunities as a doctor?’, ‘How do I determine the right board opportunities for me?’ and ‘How do I get appointed?’ 

Do doctors make good board members?

You bet. According to the Australian Institute of Company Directors AICD good NEDs have the following qualities:

1. Good judgement
2. Communication skills
3. Active contributor
4. Confidence
5. Integrity and honesty
6. Intellectual curiosity
7. Discipline
8. Genuine interest

Compare these traits against a recent study which found that good doctors have the following qualities 

1. are good communicators (tick)
2. are organised and conscientious (tick)
3. are empathetic (tick)
4. are curious (tick)
5. are collaborative (tick)
6. are persistent (tick)
7. have great bedside manner (tick)

Compare these traits against the internationally recognised CanMEDS Framework that identify the following key roles for good doctors:

1. Medical Expert
2. Communicator
3. Collaborator
4. Professional
5. Scholar
6. Health Advocate
7. Leader

 Enough said… the similarities between good doctors and good NEDs is obvious.

Which organisation’s board vacancy is right for you?

Medicine offers great skills. You have specialised fields on which your value is indispensable to potential employers. Be it at hospitals, clinics, private companies, teaching or research. So, my advice is to pick a business field where your particular medical knowledge gives you an advantage. This could be pharmaceuticals or aged care or medical technology. Whatever the area you want to be able to bring real knowledge as a practitioner to the field.

But you don’t have to limit yourself to traditional healthcare organisations either. The premise that all doctors are similar is wrong. I have found there to be a massive diversity in the skill sets of doctors. Doctors can and do run companies, and do things that business people do in addition to their clinical skill sets. Further, doctors do have other interests or experience. It is too narrow to just limit yourself and your opportunities to just the medical sectors. 

Ask yourself the following questions: What are you passionate about? What organisation can you meaningfully contribute to? Do you need to be paid? Who is going to value your connections? What is your value at board level? Answering these questions will help you to begin to narrow your focus. In turn, you will be better able to target specific organisations with a strong value proposition. This is going to make you more appointable and mean that you get a greater return on your time investment.

How do you find a board roles for doctors in Australia?

If you want a board appointment you need to focus your time on doing the things that will get you a return on the investment of your valuable time.

Whether you are a doctor, lawyer, accountant, HR, IT or marketing professional or something entirely different, finding and gaining your first non-executive role is a task few are qualified for and is akin to acquiring your first job. But it does happen – time and time again – though it is often linked to the amount of effort you put in and preparing accordingly. It is also linked to doing things that work and avoiding things that do not. 

The simplest thing you can do is often be as simple as just telling people that you are looking for a board role! So, just start by doing that. By just mentioning that you are considering board roles for doctors you might be surprised by the result. However, once you start telling people you then need to also be ready to be asked a couple of questions in return. 1. Which organisation would you like to be on the board of/are you targeting? And 2. Why do you want to be a NED? You need answers to both of these questions, otherwise you will not be taken seriously and will waste opportunities.

Whilst just telling people you would like a board role is a great start, if you are serious about gaining a board appointment you need to consider doing more. That means understanding the board appointment framework and putting together a simple, easy to implement and sustainable plan. At Board Direction, we consider there to be three ‘Core Pillars’ of a board appointment – they are the framework of your plan.

1. Aspiration: Firstly you need a list of organisations that you believe you could and would like to be appointed to the board of – we like a list of 12
2. Articulation: You need a Board CV and a verbal pitch that articulates your value at board level – language that avoids referencing your motivations but rather addresses the motivations of a decision maker.
3. Application: Applying the knowledge of what your targets are and pitch is. Most people think that means working with recruiters or responding to advertised board opportunities. However, less than 20% of all board appointments are made this way. Instead, 80% of all appointments come through informal application processes – strong ties, weak ties and direct approaches

Other than my medical expertise, what skills are Boards looking for in Directors?

Again. This will vary from organisation to organisation. But if you are thinking of extending your professional development into non-traditional areas there are some skill areas and experience you may want to invest in based on what we see regularly advertised. These include:

1. Prior Governance Experience

Obviously, if you have board-level experience, you should lead with it. But what if you don’t have prior Board experience? Consider investing in some governance training and experience. Many directors often find their way to a Board appointment through committee work. So one obvious thing you can probably do now to improve your director skill set is volunteer for committee work in your hospital or health service or College etcetera…

2. An Executive Skill Set

At board level, what do you do? What is your value at board level? And why is what you do more valuable than one of your competitors with similar skills? What is your value at board level? 

People often think finance, audit & risk and legal skills are the most valuable and most often requested at board level. However, whilst still high (good news for the lawyers and accountants reading this article), the desirability of these skills is actually decreasing, and far broader skills are in demand. 

You can think about your value in two ways: Firstly, by considering the ROI for an organisation if they were to appoint you to their board – what would you deliver them? Secondly, consider what they would lose by not appointing someone with your skillset to the board – what risks are they potentially exposed to, and what is the cost of those risks that you and your skillset can mitigate?

3. Industry Experience and Connections

For some organisations, many in fact, this is often the most important thing you can offer. Therefore, it is important for you to be able to evidence how your industry experience and connections will benefit the organisation for which you wish to sit on the board. 

The introductions you provide, the brand that you bring, or the knowledge you offer that can be leveraged to expedite business growth and lead to new opportunities. These relationships can also deal with difficult situations or provide access to knowledge not otherwise available to the organisation’s executive team.

4. Demonstrable Passion

You must always remember that passion is the key to being able to serve on a board effectively, but so is your appointability. Board members are passionate. They are often passionate about three things: What the organisation does, What the organisation is, and How they can contribute.

5. Cultural Fit

For me, this is the big one, but cultural fit is difficult to define. 

What cultural fit means for a Chair is that you are not going to risk their reputation, the board’s and that of the organisation if they were to appoint you. So, demonstrating cultural fit is ultimately about de-risking your appointment because if Chairs…

• don’t like you,
• don’t feel their board or stakeholders or shareholders will like you,
• feel like you won’t work effectively with the executive team,
• feel you won’t attend extra-professional activities with other board members,
• feel you are going to be too quiet or loud or in any way going to cause them a headache.

… they simply won’t appoint you. 

Overall, continuing to broadly invest in your professional development and expanding your skill set as a doctor can help you become a more effective and valuable board member in the healthcare industry and more widely. Consider seeking out opportunities for learning and growth in these key areas to enhance your contribution to the organisations you serve.

Gaining a Board appointment as a doctor can be simpler and quicker than you might imagine

Over 90% of the people I work with are professionals who also want a board appointment. Whilst some do have an existing portfolio of executive and non-executive roles, most others are looking for their first appointment or some want to ‘step up’ into a more significant (often paid) board appointment. Regardless, they all face similar challenges on their road to get a seat in a boardroom and need to follow the same three step process to make it happen – including any Doctor who wishes to gain a board appointment! If you’d like some advice do contact us for a confidential consultation to see if and how we can help.

Until then, just telling people of your board aspirations requires no fancy memberships, and no expense; it is also super simple to implement, and you may be astounded by how effective it can be.

If you would like to get in contact with the Author of this article, David Schwarz you can head over to the Board Direction website.

Frequently Asked Questions about Board Roles for Doctors