Avoiding Common Mistakes in Board Directors Meetings

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A well-organized meeting of your board of directors will help you to make informed and ethical decisions. The board must be able to review documents, have discussions and come to a consensus on difficult issues. Documentation is essential future reference and also to ensure compliance. The process can be challenging to navigate, but it is important that the board makes the most of their time and resources.

Board work can be both exciting and exhausting. To keep meetings productive, it is important to avoid these common mistakes.

1. Re-reading of discussion points arising from previous meetings

Reliving the discussions from the previous board meeting will consume time and distract you from the most important agenda items. It is also unlikely that you will be able to meet your goals for the meeting when you are distracted by new topics to discuss. If you are forced to discuss a topic that wasn’t originally scheduled for discussion, have the group agree to bring it to the end of the meeting with the agreement to reevaluate the issue and decide if the topic is worthy of being researched further or added to the next agenda or delegated as an assignment.

2. Information sharing is too much

Board members should be well-informed. However the information given to them should not be a complete listing of all information available. Instead, it should be a collection that encourages constructive discussion and questions. It may sound like the board is playing the role of a preschool teacher, but it allows them to concentrate on the important decisions.