Board meetings are when an important group of stakeholders — often investors, employees, and other members of the community are accountable for the organization. This can include setting the direction of the organization and making decisions. To accomplish these objectives the board must be engaged and informed. Board meetings are an important part of a company’s organizational governance structure.
Board members are selected by shareholders to represent their interests. They take decisions by consensus. They must be well-informed to make informed decisions, but they also have to be in a position to communicate clearly with each other and the other members of the team. To accomplish this, effective board meetings are based on best practices to increase engagement, efficiency, and decision-making.
It is important to define clear roles and responsibilities prior the board meeting to allow everyone in attendance to know their roles in the meeting. It is essential to be aware of the interests, expertise and expectations of every board member to customize the content of your meeting.
Assuring that everyone is at ease sharing their opinions and challenging the accepted views with respect is another important aspect to encourage engagement. This can be accomplished with different facilitation techniques such as round-robin discussion and small group breakout sessions.
There are many board meetings that have the opportunity for public comment, where anyone is able to address the board. This allows parents who have a concern that the school is unable or unwilling to resolve and other members of the community, to make their concerns heard. The time allocated to each speaker may differ from one meeting to the next, but generally, speakers get a few minutes.