I'm Getting Ready for a Board Meeting

The agenda was developed and circulated weeks ago. A revised financial projection for the second half of the year was created and emailed to board members last week, along with a cover email that included several prompting questions for discussion at the board meeting. The final location arrangements were squared away earlier this week. I'll be spending the next couple of days gathering additional materials for handing out and for mental preparation.

I mentally prepare by going through the agenda and visioning the conversation around each discussion item. This exercise helps me to articulate my thoughts, anticipate questions board members might ask of me and it prompts me to bring various types of supporting material along. Sometimes, it even leads to another handout -- an article, graph or factsheet.

Since I believe that board meetings are golden opportunities to solicit opinion, explore issues, and address the needs of our organization's constituents, I work with my board president to create agendas that allow sufficient time for discussion. In fact, I always try to build in an extra 10-15 minutes here and there just for those discussions that go deep or long. I order discussion topics in a logical way with the most pressing items requiring decisions at the top of the meeting; discussions requiring no decisions are placed further along on the agenda.

One agenda construct I have seen, but so far haven't used, is introducing an agenda item in the form of a question. For example, Why is it important to consider raising admission rates? Or, if we expanded our focus on Grade 4 programming, would we not only increase attendance but also raise our visibility for doing so?

I think I like this approach, because with it one can set the direction and tone of the conversation. In doing so, a board's conversation can be focused at a different or higher level, tying in with overarching organizational strategies and criteria -- where it's supposed to be.

I'm getting ready for a board meeting and it requires a lot of thoughtful preparation if I want to ensure that

everyone has the opportunity to speak and to be engaged
we complete the agenda to everyone's satisfaction in the allotted time
discussion is purposeful and moves the organization forward

What getting ready tips would you like to share?

Photo: Summer Conversations by ReyGuy

Comments

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

Back in the Saddle

MY LAST POST WAS NOVEMBER 2012, A LIGHT YEAR AWAY it seems, that marked the beginning of a long push toward completing a manuscript on history museum leadership with my co-author, Joan Baldwin. We finally submitted 350+ pages to our editor at Rowman & Littlefield this week. If all goes well, we expect the book to be available in early 2014. It's taken us two years to get to this point, so six more months or so of revision and production don't seem too long to wait until we can hold the final product in our hands (and you can, too!). The project put a lot of things on hold, including this blog. I'm glad to be back writing about intentional leadership -- leading by design -- for nonprofit boards and staffs. Certainly, my thoughts are now informed by the forthcoming book, in which Joan and I posit that nonprofits need to focus resources on leadership, not just management. Most cultural nonprofits are at a crossroad, as is the sector in general, where nothing is qu

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

Leading by Design

Search This Blog