Your iBoard is your collection of business leaders, role models, and personal heroes who inspire and challenge your thinking. The iBoard helps you discover solutions you may not find on your own.

Building & Accessing Your Imaginary Board

In his book, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques, Michael Michalko provides a few suggestions for this technique…

1. Select three to five business movers and shakers, living or dead, whom you admire most.
   I suggest expanding your list to include any person or character, real or fictional, living or dead. Who knows, you may find a great resource asking what would Captain Picard (Star Trek) or President Bartlet (West Wing) do?
2. Get photographs of your Board and pin them up to constantly remind you of the talent at your disposal.
3. Research your heroes. Read everything about your heroes that you can get your hands on.
4. Take notes on your favorite passages. Pay particular attention to the creative techniques they employed to solve problems.
5. When you have a challenge, consult the members of your board and imagine how they would solve it.

The founding member of my iBoard was Walt Disney. I regularly challenge myself by asking “How would Walt do this?”
My other board members include…
Ben Franklin, Mark Twain, Tom Jefferson, Leo da Vinci, Steve Martin, and I’ve recently added Tina Fey.

Recruitment Tools

Need to find or learn more about people you admire? Here are a few resources to explore:

Websites

• “The Time 100: 2007” – Time Magazine has a list of “the 100 men and women whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world.” They include five categories: artists and entertainers, scientists and thinkers, leaders and revolutionaries, builders and titans, and heroes and pioneers.

• “Business 2.0: The 50 Who Matter Now” – an unabashedly subjective list of people, products, trends, and ideas that are transforming the world of business.

Books

• “Radicals & Visionaries: Entrepreneurs Who Revolutionized the 20th Century” by Thaddeus Wawro. This book features short biographies about 90 men and women who have shaped the past 100 years.
• “Discover Your Genius: How to Think Like History’s Ten Most Revolutionary Minds” book by Michael J. Gelb …. he features… Plato, Brunelleschi, Columbus, Copernicus, Elizabeth I, Shakespeare, Jefferson, Darwin, Gandhi and Einstein.

When trying to solve a business or marketing problem… I’ll ask myself… What would Mark say? What would Leo do? How would Steve handle this situation?

Who would you put on your board?

My iBoard of Directors FY 2007