A well-run meeting of your board of directors can help you to make informed and ethical decisions. The board must be able review documents, have discussions and come to a consensus on difficult issues. The meeting should be properly documented, allowing future reference and ensuring compliance. The process might be difficult to navigate however it is crucial that the board makes the most of their time and resources.
Board work can be both stimulating and exhausting. To ensure that meetings are productive, it is important to avoid these common pitfalls.
1. Re-reading discussion points from the previous meeting
Reliving the discussions from the last board meeting will eat up time and distract you from the most important agenda items. Getting sidetracked by new topics for discussion will prevent you from reaching your goals for the meeting. If you’re forced to talk about the topic that was not originally on the agenda, then have the group agree to bring it to the close of the meeting and make the promise to revisit and reassess whether the subject should be studied further, added to the next agenda or delegated to the task.
2. Sharing too much information
Board members should be well-informed. However, the board’s document should be designed in a way that can encourage constructive discussion and stimulate questions, not serve concept of board management software as a comprehensive exposition of each piece of information available for the board’s consideration. It may sound like the board is playing the role of an elementary school teacher, but it allows them to concentrate on the important decisions.