I Know I've Had a Successful Board Meeting When....

Those of us who work with and for boards inevitably amass a pile of good, bad and ugly meeting stories. We could write a book! Today, though, I thought I'd focus on the positive aspect of board meetings and try to answer the rest of the 'I know I've had a successful board meeting when...' sentence. I hope you try to answer it as well and send your thoughts along to me.

I know I've had a successful board meeting when

the bulk of our time together is spent on strategizing how to gain the greatest impact from our work, and
everybody (or nearly so) gets the opportunity to participate

I've come to this conclusion because I've sat through some (alright, many) meetings where the agenda is not much more than a series of updates given by one or two people (including myself!). Those meetings tend to be pretty lifeless and, frankly, don't make good use of the talent, insight and intelligence of the people around the table.

My successful board meeting takes some effort to accomplish and I have to admit that, as a director, I don't accomplish it every time. But, here's my short list of ingredients that I think ought to go into making the meeting both substantive and lively:

keep the verbal reports of past activities to a minimum. If you must talk about past activities, couch the discussion in the form of an issue to be resolved or simply ask how the activity can make a greater impact.
introduce topics on the agenda in the form of questions. For example, instead of a building committee report, ask something like "Should a cyclical maintenance plan be developed to help us stay on top of the property's needs? If so, how can we make it a useable and user-friendly plan?" Instead of a report on the number and type of visitors, why not a look at a graph of visitation over several years and ask the question "What trends do we see in visitation and what are their impacts on our work?"
prep some board members to talk. For example, when you call or email Mary, say "Mary, because you've been working with the membership program, I know that you've got some insights to share about it. I'm going to ask you at the board meeting to say a few words about what you're seeing."
discuss with the board president beforehand how best to facilitate discussion. I try to address this with my board president when developing the meeting agenda.
view every meeting agenda as a clean slate. Sure, there are reoccurring items, but don't consider the agenda as a rote list of reports (you know, same list, different date) -- it can be so much more than that.
consider mixing up the activity. Now here's an interesting idea -- break into small discussion or work groups for a portion of the meeting. This strategy gets people off their duffs and interacting with others whom they may not know well (or at all). It encourages everybody to engage and talk (larger groups don't encourage that so well). And it offers the opportunity for ideas to take shape.

OK. This is no small task. But if you buy into the need to shake things up at your next (potentially boring) board meeting, try just one or two of these suggestions. See if you notice a difference. If you do, ask the group if they do, too. Changing board habits can be glacial -- but, it will never happen if the first small step isn't taken.

Photo: LAPS board meeting at CSUN by ms sherwood

What Would Make You Turn Down an Invitation to Join a Board?

THERE'S SO MUCH WRITTEN ABOUT RECRUITING BOARD TALENT, I thought I'd spend a little time thinking about it from the prospect's point of view. Clearly, there are boards where the line is long to get on them. But what would make you turn down an invitation? Here's a short list to get the conversation started: 1. You've had no prior exposure to the organization. Your immediate reaction is "did you pull my name out of a hat?" (Is that lady in the picture the head of the Nominating Committee?) Seems as though there must be a hidden agenda at work (like you're rich and once you become a board member you'll pour all your resources into the organization) or the organization is simply looking for any warm body to fill a seat. 2. The organization doesn't have a good reputation. There's something to be said for street cred. An organization that's floundering may be strengthened by your participation or you may find yourself sucked into...

Three Most Important Nonprofit Executive Director Soft Skills

If you were asked to narrow down the list of executive director qualifications to the three most important, which ones would you identify? Would the list consist of soft skills, hard skills, or some combination? Would your list be based on the great ED you are or one you've worked for, or would it be your wish list for the ED you haven't been fortunate yet to work for? This was an assignment in my recent online class in leadership and administration for the American Association for State and Local History . I asked the class to review three-five advertisements for museum directors and analyze what these listings intimated about the organization’s past experience, current focus and goals, and future aspirations. Then, I asked the class to identify what they consider to be the three most important qualifications they would look for in a director. (Okay, so there's more than three if you dissect my three big groups.) Soft skills outnumbered hard skills, although ...

What to Do With Dead Wood on Your Board?

MY POLL ASKED WHAT ONE BOARD DYNAMIC YOU would change this year and the top response was "remove dead wood". For my first post on this topic I'd like to start with two obvious facts: 1) most boards have some non-performing or under-performing board members AND 2) most boards already have mechanisms in place for removing dead wood...or at least the non-attending dead wood. Those mechanisms are found in the Bylaws and perhaps in a board job description. Few boards, it seems, invoke these mechanisms, mostly out of fear of offending the offender. We end up side-stepping the dead wood, dancing around it, ignoring it, wishing mightily it would go away. Oh, and complaining about it. So, even though the dead wood isn't doing much, it's sapping the energy and focus of many others. (There must be a Law of Physics about this!) Where to start and how to implement? While removing dead wood is not the most pleasant of responsibilities, it does not need to be -- and s...

Linda said…

One other element--I've noticed that board meetings that start with a bit of socializing--a potluck, lunch, or whatever, then settle down to work--often are more productive, I think because the board builds the sense of being a community together, rather than just a disparate group of individuals.

April 11, 2009 at 2:52 AM

zerry ht said…

For my successful meeting I always go with my employee’s ideas. Their participation and willingness to make this company work more efficiently makes me very proud and happy. So after our board meetings we always have corporate events too. That makes everyone relaxed and glad.

March 14, 2017 at 4:39 AM

Leading by Design

Search This Blog