How frank are you with your board chair?

The Community Food Club, a nonprofit grocery store in Grand Rapids, grew 47 percent in six months. AJ Fossel couldn’t even get away for lunch. 

The staff was only six people, and AJ was working 60-hour weeks stocking shelves, while her team was burning out.

I took my board chair out for breakfast…and just said, hey, I need some help and some support. We’re drowning.

As AJ told me in this week’s episode, she was “afraid to have that conversation with [her] board.”

It was probably the moment that I had to be the most brave in my career when I had to come before my board…But to really say, I’m struggling. I think that this is a good way forward, but I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen…You’re always looked at as the expert in the room, right? And you’re always looked at as the one who has to have every answer.

CEOs frequently tell me some variation of this. I also hear a lot of imposter syndrome. They think they’re supposed to be the expert. Their board members often don't even expect that. But the CEO puts it on themselves.

“I don’t know” can be three of the most powerful words a CEO says to a board. They show humility and limits. They can be part of a request for help.

Dan Vogel of Flourish Fund told me about this in Episode 20: