7 Tips to run an amazing board meeting

Another meeting?! Crap! Let's make it fun this time!

Working in an NGO almost exclusively means that your expectations, thoughts, and skills matter. You are expected to trust yourself and others and this is the most beautiful part of working for a higher purpose. On the other hand, even a great team needs an agenda and a meeting facilitator. Otherwise, you meeting will end up without any results.

Let me share seven tips you can use to organize your board meeting.

1. Set an agenda but don't be afraid to diverge

A week before our meeting, we already had our agenda in Google sheet, so everyone could approach the document and write suggestions. Having an agenda is essential but it often happens that during the meeting you realize that there are some more important questions to be answered. In this case, don't let your team get stuck. Create space for divergence.

Here are some important questions from the agenda:

- status updates, what happened since the last meeting

- what was the strategy for the last year

- what are the key leanings

- what are the areas we should invest in – or not – depending on results in each area

- how do we feel about our roles

- what keeps us motivated to be part of a board

2. Set an “expectation wall” before the meeting

Setting an “expectation wall” is essential thing to do before your meeting. This is how you keep your board members engaged and you, as a meeting facilitator, can prepare better for the sessions.

Here are some expectation questions from our meeting:

- What do you want from the meeting and from the group?

- What questions do you hope to get answered to?

- What topics do we need to address during the meeting?

- What concrete outcomes does the meeting need to have?

- What one thing needs to happen no matter what so that you say: it was a good meeting?

3. Plan your energizers/ make sure that you have a positive thinker

It is always a good thing to plan your energizers in case a team reaches its low points, especially if you run a three-day meeting. Give your team members a chance to laugh and relax. You should definitely count on “stuck moments” and have something to refresh your team. We suggest a quick creative exercise before each meeting.

4. Personal rounds/ check your added value

Creating a safe space is the best thing you can do for your team members. I am sure that each of us has some private and some professional struggles. Making a morning round where we just for thirty minutes talk about why we think we do a great job or not that great job at the moment is something that gets our team closer. This is how we humanize our working environment and add some extra value to what we do.

5. Invite external experts or friends

It is also a good idea to invite external guests who would join your team for a couple of hours, observe your work, comment and bring some new energy. This can also be a nice networking moment, where you show your working process to a potential partner. Such encounter can help you learn something about your communication tools and structure through which you involve people outside of the organisation.

6. Three minutes success celebration

3 minutes success celebration is something that we started practicing at the end of 2018, because our organization was in some kind of crises. In order to keep people and remind them that working hard pays of, we picked our biggest successes from 2018 and celebrated each for 3 minutes by talking about highlight moments.

7. Appreciation/ Building rituals

One of the things that we came across as important for our team to feel motivated and keep working even when we have a challenging times is to feel good about working together. We always encourage our team members to feel like they are ENOUGH because they are, but also getting appreciation from other team members is something really awesome. That’s why we decided to build our own rituals of appreciation. You can start with micro-moments and then grow them into something bigger. Having a ritual is really crucial not only for one team to function good but also to remain creative.