Waiting for the phone to ring........

CEOs and other c-suite executives who announce their departure from their companies “to pursue a board portfolio” often believe that they will be overwhelmed with invitations to join boards. For most, it comes as quite a shock that offers aren’t made with the volume and speed that they expected or from the type organisations they believe to be an appropriate match to their skills and experience.

A senior company executive’s life is busy and demanding. In order for the executive to be efficient and productive, an executive assistant (EA) manages the diary, books flights, makes restaurant reservations and ensures a car and driver is ready. The phone never stops ringing; people are always waiting to be seen.

The EA is a lifeline, a diary at the end of the phone. I've seen CEOs and other well known executives walking down Collins Street in Melbourne or George Street in Sydney on the phone to their EA asking: "Where do I have to be next?"

Outside this environment, the former CEOs often find they are fending for themselves. Some lease an office and employ a part-time assistant; others share office space and secretarial support with like-minded people. “Of course, I look after myself these days,” is the clarion call of a former executive in transition to life as a company director.

For the most part, the executive must adjust to a new life of being self-sufficient: booking their own flights, catching taxis, typing their own emails, making follow up calls. Some former executives even confide to me that they’re worried they’ll have to return their membership card to the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge.

As Helen Coonan, a former senator and now non-executive director of casino operator Crown Limited, told The Weekend Australian newspaper: "Things like (having to drive) yourself everywhere. It's a big shock."

But the least understood challenge for most former executives - or former politicians - who are “building a board portfolio” is the wait: the wait for the invitations; the wait for calls to be returned; the wait between appointments. “You have to be patient and resilient because it never happens as quickly as you expected or wanted,” one ASX 200 director told me.

The yardstick is a minimum of two years – of networking and endless coffee meetings in hotel cafes, of waiting for invitations, of being interviewed by board nominations committees, of learning to cope with not being chosen and of dealing with the disappointment and frustration that can follow.

No longer the centre of attention the former executive can find himself outside of the sphere of influence, increasingly isolated and seemingly marginalised.

Making the transition from an executive career to a company director is a tough adjustment to make. My next post on this topic will offer suggestions and ideas for how a serving CEO can start planning for post-executive board career, and how those “directors-in-waiting” can make the transition easier.