Board meetings can be an invaluable source of information for your organization. They can help you make better decisions, improve your productivity and time management skills, improve your collaboration, and bring your company closer to its goals.
They can be long, confusing, and boring. This is because many boards don’t have a proper structure, schedule of meetings or agenda in place and even if they have them, they’re not usually managed in a manner that ensures maximum engagement and effectiveness.
A crucial aspect of a successful board meeting is having an agenda that clearly spells out the agenda for the meeting and includes all necessary documentation prior to the start of the meeting. It’s important to limit the number of items on the agenda and avoid reusing items from one meeting to the next.
Be sure to concentrate on issues and issues of a strategic nature, rather than those that are strictly operational. This will stimulate board members’ varied skills and interests, helping you draw on more energy to engage in discussions.
The board should have the ability to discuss, approve and measure strategies that will help your company achieve its objectives. This means setting and discussing specific measures to gauge progress. This can be accomplished by assigning ‘KPIs’ to every strategy, like client or donor retention rates and acquired revenue levels. Focusing these discussions on the most critical issues that your company faces will maximize the value of every minute of your board meetings.
