Most boards assign work based on who's available, who volunteered first, or, let's be honest, who didn't dodge eye contact fast enough when a task came up.
The result is a board where the same three people do everything, several people do nothing and nobody's quite sure why it feels so hard.
There's a better way. It starts with knowing who's actually sitting at your table.
Your treasurer might be a graphic designer. Your secretary might have fifteen years in project management. Your newest member might speak four languages or have a law degree or run a small business with twelve employees.
You don't know unless you ask. And most boards never ask.
You don't need a formal skills assessment. You don't need a survey with seventeen fields. You need two questions and a genuine interest in the answers:
1. What do you do when you're not doing this? Job, hobbies, side projects, whatever. You're not prying, you're paying attention. The answers tell you what someone is actually good at and what they actually enjoy.
2. What kind of contribution would feel meaningful to you? This one matters more than people think. Some people want visible work. Some want behind-the-scenes. Some want to be in the room where decisions get made. Some want to be handed a task and left alone to complete it. None of those is wrong, but treating them all the same is.
Build an informal board skills map. It doesn't have to be fancy, a simple document with each member's name, their background and what they're up for is enough.
Then actually use it. When a task comes up, look at the map before you default to asking whoever's standing closest.
Matching people to work that suits them, makes people feel seen. And people who feel seen tend to show up.
This isn't about letting people opt out of the hard stuff. It's about making sure the hard stuff is distributed thoughtfully and that people's contributions actually match their capacity.
A board where everyone is working in their zone of competence is a board that hums. A board where everyone is doing whatever nobody else wanted to do is a board that burns out.
You've got good people around that table. Find out who they actually are.
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