Board meetings are an art and a science. You have to walk a few fine lines to make them successful. You have to balance between people having their voices heard and ensuring that no one dominates the conversation. You have to let ideas get put forward while ensuring a decision gets made when it is needed. On top of all this, you have to manage a variety of personalities at the table.
Board members are passionate, accomplished people who didn’t get where they are by being complacent and silent. (That combination of skill and enthusiasm is the very reason Board Members are amazing assets to your mission!). Over the years, as a charity leader and as a Board Member, I have seen a few things that can throw a Board meeting off course. Keeping an eye on these areas and managing them will help ensure better Board meetings for all – and allow a space for positive conflict without turning into unproductive chaos.
If you want to derail your Board meeting, try the following.
Blindside someone. Board meetings are a space for new ideas to come forward and decisions to be made and shared. But putting something forward that contradicts someone’s previous understanding or something they weren’t expecting, especially with contentious decisions, could create a storm. We’re dealing with people, and no one likes bad surprises.
Before bringing forward a big or tricky item to the table, it’s a good idea to check in with some individual Board Members, especially ones who are more impacted by that decision or are likely to oppose it. Test the waters and get some champions on side. If you are a staff member, then the last place your Board Chair should hear something major from you for the first time is at the Board meeting. Your trust will erode very quickly.
Don’t talk about important issues. There are a range of Boards – large or small, local grassroots organizations or multi-national, so-called working Boards or. governance and strategy Boards. Even Boards of smaller organizations should leave smaller details to Management or the Management committees. The Board’s real role is governance, financial oversight, strategic direction, and serving as an ambassador. Help Board members do that job and stay out of the rest.
If you spend meetings getting into nitty-gritty details (like “chicken or fish” for the gala event), they can take a surprising amount of time and, even when a decision is made, you haven’t really moved your larger agenda forward. You haven’t made the decisions that will actually determine the viability and success of your organization well into the future. Make sure that at every Board meeting, there is at least one mission critical issue that the Board can sink their teeth into. Those are the meetings I’ve seen that are the most engaging, productive and fun.
Don’t rein the meeting in. The Board Chair holds in their hands the commitment of time for all the Board Members, and they must ensure it is used wisely. Sometimes, a Board Member has something to get off their chest, and that is healthy and should be allowed as long as it is done respectfully. However, if a Board Member has a particular pain point, brings it up repeatedly even after a decision has been made on an issue, or if they happen to go on much longer than that issue deserves, the Board Chair has to find a way to bring the discussion back to the agenda.
It’s not easy to cut off discussion but it’s necessary for the greater good of all at the table. It might also warrant a conversation after the meeting with that Board Member so they know they are being heard. Having a well-thought out agenda with time allocated for each issue will also make it easier to renew focus.
Shut people down. Reining in is sometimes required. It’s also important not to shut someone down. Positive conflict and constructive idea generation are core pillars of a healthy and successful Board. This requires honouring people’s comments and ideas, giving the space to discuss them respectfully and then moving forward with the group’s decision.
If someone feels that they were dismissed or minimized, it may be very difficult to get them onside with a decision. Also, when people are speaking up and keep getting shut down, what happens? They stop contributing. That will lead to a disengaged Board member very soon. Respect has to be at the core of all interactions.
Don’t do your homework. Whether you are the CEO, ED, or Board Chair, it will look very poor if you haven’t prepared enough. It’s not that you have to be able to answer every question but it’s prudent to anticipate what questions are most likely to be asked and then prepare a response for them or, present that information proactively. Otherwise, it will reduce your credibility, and waste time as people speculate about an answer or are unable to make a decision due to incomplete information. Sometimes, you really don’t have the answer and it’s perfectly fine to say that the information will be found and given at a later time to keep things moving. Just make that the exception not the rule.
Watch out for these potential derailing traps and you can have better Board meetings – which contributes to a more engaged Board and a stronger organization. Imagine truly looking forward to Board meetings!
Rickesh passionately believes that every donor deserves to feel excellent about giving, and that the duty of a fundraiser is to bring passion towards enhancing the donor experience every day. He is adamant about always putting people first, then process, and that fundraisers, charities and social profit groups should not be afraid to have a personality. Rickesh is the Executive Director at Future Possibilities for Kids, where they provide leadership and life skills development programs for children and youth from underserved communities. He is on the Board of Directors for the Association for Fundraising Professionals of Greater Toronto and is the lead organizer of Be Good Be Social York Region, a conference promoting social media for social good.
