Meetings That Matter
Author: Aly McNicoll
How productive are your Board meetings? Are they the meetings you never want to miss? Do you walk away from them feeling enriched, inspired and eager to get to work on making a difference?
If anyone needs effective meetings it’s the not for profit Board. Boards have a lot of important work to do and often only meet for a few hours a month. Nobody joined the Board to quibble over the details in a financial report or sit through endless points of order. They joined the Board because of the difference they felt they could make in the communities they serve.
A meeting can be the heartbeat of a team. The place where the team comes together to get things done but more importantly to connect and feel part of something bigger than themselves. Meetings are where we should work better together, where we use the collective intelligence that sits around the table to make better choices for the futures we are trying to create. We want to make Board meetings the meetings people never want to miss so they become not just a vehicle for getting the work done but a mechanism for keeping people engaged and inspired. We want people walking away from meetings feeling like they have made a contribution and collectively the Board has got to places, they feel they couldn’t have got to on their own.
This article looks at three common pitfalls that affect Board meeting effectiveness and what we can do about them.
1. Formal meeting procedures
Some Boards fall in to the trap of assuming they need to use formal meeting procedures in order to have a ‘proper’ meeting. Formal (European) meeting procedures were created to bring order to the chaos of large public meetings in village squares. Parliamentary procedures were invented to deal with heated debates in large groups of people who have very different political orientations. These rigid procedures were designed to ensure that groups dealt with one business item at a time and that everyone had a chance to express their view. Noble intentions. The down side of formal meeting procedures is that they can be the kiss of death to participation or creative discussion and can feel intimidating to those less confident in their knowledge of the rules.
Boards either need formal meeting procedures or a good facilitator. They don’t need both. A good facilitator plans the meeting, makes sure there are clear objectives for discussions and ensures background information has been made available before decisions get made. It is the facilitator’s job to ensure everyone gets a chance to express their views and that clear outcomes are reached in reasonable time frames.
One of the first things your Board might want to do is throw out the formal agenda and create one that will keep your attention focused on what’s most important. How much of your meeting is focused on the past rather than the future? What headings do you need to ensure you don’t miss anything important? What meeting agenda headings would enable you to play your most important role as a Board, that of strategic leadership? Perhaps they need to be your strategic plan priorities.
You can always pull out the odd bit of formality (like voting if there is not enough time for consensus or reading out potential decisions before you vote) to aid your meeting clarity and ensure your Board is a democracy, not a dictatorship. Which takes us to the second pitfall.
2. Faulty group dynamics
People often behave differently in groups than they do as individuals, particularly if they don’t know each other well. The pressures of working in a group can cause some to need to protect their status in front of others, to appear clever, intelligent or right.
Those with strong personalities can take over, enjoying the attention whilst those who don’t feel so sure of themselves or are in the minority sit back and play it safe. Unfortunately research shows there are gender components to faulty group dynamics and the very qualities that cause some to sit back (social sensitivity and turn taking) are actually the things that create collective intelligence. The combined intelligence of a group has nothing to do with individual IQ.
Once again a good facilitator will be observing group dynamics and employing strategies that ensure equity exists in the Board room, that people feel respected or valued and that all view points have a chance to see the light of day. We need to start choosing Board members based on their personal qualities and group skills, not just their expertise or status in the community.
Make sure your Board members have a commitment to the cause, respect for (and skills in) group process, the ability to raise difficult issues in a firm and helpful way and are people who are able to manage themselves and their emotions so they can communicate with civility, respect and regard (no temper tantrums, put downs, over talking, eye rolling etc.).
3. Over use of ‘random discussion’ as a decision making tool
The other thing a good facilitator does is plan the meeting process for each agenda item. Random discussion is just one tool in the facilitator’s toolbox and is the least efficient or effective when it comes to getting a group to outcomes. Starting a discussion with a simple ‘pros and cons’ list around a few options on the table fast tracks decision making. Using a round to canvas the views of the group before getting too deep in to discussion is another time saver. There are a thousand things you can do with post it notes and all of them legal. Let’s get a bit creative in terms of how we work together, and this will also help people stay focused if our meetings are being held at the end of the day.