A well-organized meeting of your board of directors can help you to make informed and ethical decisions. The board needs to be able to scrutinize documents, discuss, and reach a consensus on complex issues. Documentation is vital to allow for future reference and to ensure compliance. The process can be difficult to navigate, but ensuring that the board is making the most of its time and resources is vital for your organization’s success.
Board work can be both exciting and exhausting. Avoid these common mistakes to make sure that meetings productive.
1. Rehashing of discussion points from previous meetings
Reliving the discussions from the previous board meeting will take up time and distract you from the most important agenda items. In the event that you get distracted by new discussion topics could hinder your progress towards the goals of the board for the meeting. If you must discuss an issue that wasn’t on the agenda, then have the members agree to push it to the end of the meeting, with the agreement to reevaluate and revisit whether the subject should be studied further or added to the following agenda, or delegated as a task.
2. Information sharing is too much
Board members should be well-informed. However the information given to them should not be a comprehensive listing of all the information available. Instead it should be a comprehensive set of documents that encourages discussion and asking questions. It might sound like playing a pre-school teacher however it allows the board to concentrate on the most important decisions and ensures that they’re tackling these issues when their decision-making capabilities are at their most powerful.
