A More Flexible Board Meeting

A board meeting is more flexible than most people realize.

Sure, there are a few things that are necessary legal steps. For example, approving the agenda, approving the previous meeting minutes, and following the correct process for making and seconding motions. After that you can create a board meeting that works best for your organization.

A board meeting is more flexible than most people realize.

If your board is a governance board, you'll probably want board business and governance topics to be the top of the agenda. However, if you're board is an operating board because you don't have any paid staff you will need to focus more on operational matters.

Finding the best board meeting format is really a matter of trying things on and seeing how they fit.

For example, you might want to review committee reports at a board meeting. Then maybe after a couple of months the board finds it takes too much time away from other important matters to review those reports. It's an easy fix, drop the committee reports but have them available in another way for board members to read before the meeting.

It might be a regular occurrence to leave discussions about attracting new board members until the month before the AGM. Then board members find they are scrambling to ask people to join and it really isn't quality work. It's an easy fix, make the discussion about potential nominees something that occurs at each meeting.

Embrace the flexibility of a board meeting as away to make it work for your organization. The side benefit is that board members may actually feel more engaged and even enjoy the meeting.

-Christie