A successful board meeting is a combination of strategies that are designed to increase the effectiveness of your meetings and create the ideal environment for collaboration. These tips will help you set an exciting atmosphere, encourage participation and get the desired outcome.
Clarify the goals of your meeting
Setting clear goals helps to keep meetings productive and focused. This can also lead participants to thoughtful discussions and decision making processes. Clarifying meeting goals will also enable leaders to prioritize agenda items, assign adequate time for each topic, and provide flexibility for the eventuality that unexpected questions or urgent situations occur during the meeting.
Start with the most important issues
By addressing the most important issues first, you will increase the energy of your meeting and put everyone in a better frame of mind to engage in a deeper discussion. This is a great way to establish an expectation that your meetings are focused on issues rather than news.
Distribute all meeting materials in advance
Distributing meeting materials and reports to all Board members in advance is the best way to make sure they are prepared for the meeting. This will give attendees the chance to look over the materials prior to the meeting and prepare their thoughts and opinions. This will prevent the meeting from drifting off track and getting become a mess of administrative work.
Evaluate Your Meetings
Utilizing an online board portal allows you to record the items that you need to follow up on during the meeting, and then distribute them in virtual data room reviews an easily digestible format after the meeting has been over. It is also essential to evaluate the board meetings regularly to see what is working and what could be improved.