Once the bowl of candy has been passed around, each person has to answer a question for each color they take. Yes, my family called me Sasa because my little sisters couldn’t say “Vanessa.” And I lived in China during college. make the toughest decisions in your company. What matters is that you figure out how to best work with your board. Here are a few more articles that can help you plan and run better board meetings: A Board Meeting Should Be Like a Bowl of Wheaties, Ten Good Questions Board Members Should Ask At Board Meetings. These fun icebreakers can be performed anytime, anywhere, no matter the distance! Use it Today - Consent Agenda: Finding Time for Your Board to Discuss What Matters I am not talking about any individual company. Make all changes, additions, and corrections to the previous meeting’s minutes as approved by the board. This is a way to get people exploring beyond what they already know about each other. The purpose of a board meeting agenda is to improve the effectiveness of board meetings. Growing up, my family called me “Sasa” as a nickname. Here are some basic tasks to check off before your next board meeting: Decide when and where the meeting will take place. This is helpful for not putting people on the spot. When you have these identified, you can agree which items you think are relevant to the board. If polled a week before the board meeting, a good number of founders would say, "I wish we could delay this meeting a couple of weeks" or "I really could do without having this board meeting at all.". How open are you to new experiences? Thanks for giving new way of thinking.. The board secretary is often the unsung hero, but board members appreciate arriving at a meeting that is well-prepared. Most meetings will tackle looming problems, identify future opportunities, and spark new ideas. This can include: fundraising, product development choices, sales, marketing effectiveness, competition, business development, M&A...whatever. An effective board meeting agenda template will vary from board to board, but the focus should always be on creating a board agenda that adds value and that works for the organisation. If they don’t like a question, they can choose another to answer! I've been sitting on tech boards for two decades, so I have some experience with what goes wrong. If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be? If you have a small group, you can make sure everyone in the room gets at least one turn with each other. Want a fun way to make a meeting more… dare I say… delicious? the following blogs that have posts related to this topic. down the blog's page to see various posts. The teams that did the icebreaker before the scavenger hunt got the most selfies, had the shortest completion times, and reported liking each other more in the post-event survey. Right up until my question, she was a bundle of enthusiasm. Pre-meeting packets don’t have to be complete, but they should include any materials that board members need to pre-read so they are better prepared to partake in informed discussions. But it's part of managing a board, which is part of running a company effectively. Find a partner. People debate the information you put in front of them. Here’s the concept. I took this very seriously. How can I become a better Executive Director? They get reoriented with the numbers so that they aren't caught off guard in the meeting. Generally, though, your board should have some policies and protocols to keep things civil, help the board come to decisions and provide minutes of what transpired in case of a dispute later on. Sort through the bowl to make sure you don’t have any coins that are too old. This icebreaker requires a bit of prep work with your team, and it’ll be better if you’re in similar time zones. get it to the board so they could actually have sufficient time to read it! Or meet each other’s kids. This is my favorite icebreaker, because you combine easy bonding with the best possible ingredient: sugar! If you want their support for a hard decision you can figure out where they stand. want to review some related topics, available from the link below. You’ll probably find it fairly predictable. How to Draft Board Minutes for a Two-Day Meeting, Carnegie Mellon University: Working With Your Board of Directors. Adjustments were made accordingly and we were all ready to go. Gotta build that in. She regularly leads innovative corporate workshops and helps thousands of individual professionals in her online program People School. Special Note: If you have introverts in the group, it’s nice to let the group know ahead of time that they should think of two truths and one lie for the meeting. Far from being just another piece of administration, a well-crafted structured board meeting agenda template can be a critical tool to ensure successful board meetings.An effective board meeting agenda template will vary from board to board, but the focus should always be on creating a board agenda that adds value and that works for the organisation. Library's We can reduce costs, but it will take us 12 months to reduce the bill-of-materials. That seems like plenty to remind you that there aren’t too many surprises in the annual trajectory of a nonprofit organization. Often they'll take the lead from suggestions presented by corporate management. See if you can spot these cues with the, Have you ever noticed you date the same kind of person over and over again? Here’s the concept. This is a great icebreaker if you want to get people moving around the room. In our last session this client was of substantive value to me – illustrating to me yet again that I get as much as I give in the work that I do. Have a bowl of coins sitting at home? For example, here are three statements about me. Write a draft of the current meeting’s minutes while they are fresh in your mind. On the basis of the strategies that they devise, the board members also recommend and approve plans of action for the management and employees to implement. Create a set of KPIs for how you manage the business. If your board meetings are regarded as an unpleasant obligation, it’s time to bring a fresh perspective: board meetings are an opportunity to exchange ideas, resolve issues and deepen commitment. Feeling funky? Once you have KPIs for how you manage, you should run them by board members to find out if they think you're missing anything.