Effective Board Meetings: How to Conduct Effective, Efficient Meetings
Your company relies on the board to relay important information to team members and ensuring that everyone is focused on achieving their overall goals. Unproductive or ineffective board meetings can lead to lower productivity and disconnection with management.
In order to have a productive meeting it is crucial to comprehend the role each member plays and the various styles of discussion that you have within your board. Certain members prefer to speak first, whereas others think before speaking. The Effective Board Meetings chair of the board or executive director CEO should spend time outside of the boardroom to get familiar with each individual’s interests, discussion styles, and preferences in order to encourage engagement.
At the beginning of your board meetings, start by ensuring that quorum is present (a minimum number of board members required to legally conduct business). Then, ask the chair to summarize highlights from the board’s agenda and pre-meeting calls, and set expectations for the remainder of the meeting.
The board meeting should be primarily focused on discussing how to overcome roadblocks and devise strategies to help move forward. This is the time when the board is able to bring in new perspectives to stimulate innovative thinking and support growth. It’s recommended for your board to have a section on the agenda specifically devoted to compliance and legal matters. This will ensure that they are in compliance with all laws as well as ethical standards.
