Speaker 1: Hello, I'm Peggy Vasquez and I am so delighted to be with you today for ASAP's vlog series. I work with administrative professionals, managers, human resources, and conference planners. I provide coaching and training for administrative professionals to increase their communication, partnerships, and professionalism so they can make more money, get more work done, and be happier at work on a daily basis. Today I'm going to share with you my top five tips for coordinating meetings and managing board meetings. This is a huge topic. Today we're only going to hit the basics. If you want to go deeper, all you have to do is contact me at my website and I'd be happy to help you. Did you know there are more than 11 million business meetings in the United States every day? 11 million. And most employees spend 15 hours per week in meetings. And most employees attend 60 meetings a month. And according to Harvard Business Review, research has shown that meetings have increased in length and frequency over the past 50 years, to the point where executives spend an average of nearly 23 hours a week in them. It's no wonder that people hate meetings. A study from the University of North Carolina proved how workers feel about the effectiveness of meetings has a direct correlation with job satisfaction or dissatisfaction. We know that many meetings are not productive or rewarding group experiences. And here's where we come in. Administrative professionals can make a huge impact on creating highly effective meetings and board meetings. The four main problems with meetings are the meeting was unnecessary. The meeting was wasted time. The meeting didn't use or follow an agenda and all sorts of other feedback. What's an effective meeting? Number one, you've got to minimize distractions. My executive has done a great job of this. He has banned all electronics in meetings. No phone, no tablet, no laptop. In the beginning, the group was pretty disappointed in this decision. But I've got to admit it, it has greatly minimized the distraction because what's going to happen if you've got your phone, if you've got your laptop, if you've got your tablet in the meeting, sooner or later, you're going to get on it, aren't you? And you're going to be distracted. When you're distracted, you're not going to get to that feeling of accomplishment. It's never going to get to that time well spent, which is the best compliment you can ever hear an attendee say. You've got to have a clear purpose for the meeting. You never want to be like this guy that calls a meeting to discuss absenteeism and has nobody in the meeting with them. And in order to do that, you need to ask the right questions. Here's five questions to get you started. Number one, why are we meeting? Never have a meeting just because it was scheduled. If there isn't a clear purpose, cancel the meeting. Who should attend the meeting? Every single person in the meeting should be contributing, whether you're the administrative professional or a manager. You're not just there to take minutes and to make coffee. You're there to contribute. And then when should we meet? How often? What are we going to have? Are there pre-reading materials? Is there something that we need to create to send out to everybody so they'll be prepared in the meeting? Board meetings are all about ensuring proper governance. My best practices are intended as a general guide, not a one size fits all approach. You may need to tweak these details based on the nature of your business and the preferences of your board. In general, you're going to plan ahead . You need to know your chairperson well. You create an effective agenda. You distribute board books efficiently. And you do sweat the small stuff. Plan ahead. That is your key to being successful with any type of meeting, whether that's a board meeting or a general meeting. The great thing about board meetings is that they're typically held quarterly. And so you schedule them for the entire year. You have the whole schedule in advance. That type of predictability makes advanced planning on your end not only possible, but highly advisable. So for each meeting, I suggest the following timeline for staying on task. A month out, you're going to plan your agenda. Two weeks out, you're going to draft the board book and the meeting presentation slides. A week out, you're going to distribute the materials. Schedule your board meetings way ahead of time. Get the meetings on your board's calendar a whole year in advance. Work with your board's administrative staff. Make sure you have their contact information. You're including them on the emails. They can be a huge asset to you. Board members are busy, too. And last minute requests for meetings can drive them crazy. So share all the details. Share what's expected up front, what the schedule looks like, when the reports are going to be due, and all the deadlines so that there's no surprises. You request copies of reports for the meeting from the executive director, the treasurer, the committee chairs, and anyone else who's going to be submitting a report. The chair is able to conduct an efficient meeting when board members have materials far enough before the board meeting to review, so that they'll come to the meeting prepared with copies of the and questions. You need to know your chairperson well. First among equals in the meeting preparation process is your board chair. Before creating the agenda and compiling the board book, you should determine what the level of involvement desired by your chairperson, as well as the expectations for the organization and content of the meeting materials. The board chair Some board chairs are more than happy to leave the planning to management, while others are interested in the micro-level details and have particular preferences. Some expect a high level of detail in the book, and others require a standard dashboard approach. Make sure you know what their preferences are. You need to know what the chairperson expects, and other board members for that matter. It's the key to delivering an organized and thorough board book. And you should also discuss the chair's preferences around timing and the method of distributing the materials to the board members. So in general, know your chairperson's level of involvement, expectations, and preferences. Then you're going to create an effective agenda. Agenda items will vary. Some require board approval on a quarterly basis, some on an annual basis. Sometimes there's things that come up on a management level, but in general, management has broad leeway on topics that can be addressed at a board meeting. Agenda items, they're going to vary, but there's always going to be some standing items. So standing items are things like roll call, approval of minutes, board meeting reports, department updates, financial reports, old business, new business. There will be an executive session. You're going to review the schedule to make sure that everybody's on track. Everybody knows what's coming up. Everybody's going to be prepared. And then adjournment. The first step in planning the board meeting is to gather pertinent information. So you check in with the board chair, the CEO, the executive director about urgent matters, because it's possible that important or urgent matters have developed since the last board meeting. So check in with those key individuals to see whether any of these items need to be added to the agenda. You want to ask great questions. Things like what are the issues that need to be resolved? What information needs to be shared? What topics need to be discussed? What decisions need to be made? And what needs to be reported and why? You check in with the board members that were assigned for follow up matters to make sure that they're prepared to make their reports for the meeting. A couple weeks before the board meeting, send an email to the board and copy their administrative staff with a proposed agenda. And that should also include the meeting location, the date and the time. And you want to focus on maybe just five or six topics. Ask for the board's feedback. And that's going to create transparency and openness with them, which is critical for a healthy discussion. The board secretary should have a brief meeting with the CEO or executive director to review the reports for accuracy and appropriateness. They should also double check the agenda to make sure that all the items that require board approval and decision making are included on the agenda. And then comes distributing the board books. I know that this can be a huge pain to have to those of you who are the board secretary. Keep in mind that a well-reported board book is a crucial component to a successful board meeting. And when done correctly, it inspires confidence and trust in the management team. It provides a foundation for a meaningful and productive meeting. I understand that it can be an administrative inconvenience to create and disseminate a board book to all of your board members. And then you also have to retrieve all those board books in order to make sure that that material stays secure. Well, I highly encourage you to find alternative methods for distributing those board books. They don't have to be the hard copy. There's several different password protected, safe, secure web portals to share the board materials. And of course, you've got to make sure that the And of course, you've got cost savings for not having a hard copy book. But it also solves the occasional problem of a lost board book or the need to collect the books after the meeting. And it also facilitates in posting materials as they become available rather than having to get all the materials out the door at one time. Although you may not convince all your board members to use electronic distribution, you probably can get at least some of them on board. And if they see that more and more board members are using electronic distribution, they just may will jump on board to. You want to send the pre-meeting packets, whether those are electronic or hard copy. They don't have to be complete packet, but they should include any materials that board members need to pre-read so they're better prepared to be informed of the discussions. And they should include any reports that the committee chairs or others have prepared ahead of time. Include copies of the prior meetings minutes for correction and review so they can be voted on and approved at the upcoming meeting. You're going to prepare a few extra copies just in case if someone forgets to bring them or an unexpected guest arrives. My advice is to sweat the small stuff. You want to embrace the model. There is no detail too small. Planning a board meeting extends well beyond the realm of agendas and board books. There's a number of key logistical issues to manage too. Beyond selecting a location to hold the meeting, the meeting space must have all the equipment, all the technology that you need to conduct the meeting and support the needs of the visiting directors. For example, the proper equipment must be on hand for viewing slides during the meeting and ensuring conference or video call capabilities for board members or other meeting attendees who will be joining remotely. Equally important are items such as food, lodging and transportation. You want to provide assistance with travel plans and expense reports. You want to help for anyone who is visiting from out of town. You need to get to know what your members like to eat and what are their special dietary needs. As much as you possibly can, organize the agenda around travel considerations so that crucial items are discussed before board members need to catch that late flight out. You also want to consider a standing dinner with a board either the night before or after the meeting to capitalize on their attendance. They're in town and they could have that time to have informal business and simply just to bring the board together with the members of the senior management. I encourage you to make the final confirmations, do the dry runs, go through all the details, walk through it yourself and that way you won't have surprises and you won't be in that moment of coulda, woulda, shoulda that you'll have it all gone through mentally and physically to know that everything will be done perfectly. I encourage you to create a board meeting checklist that includes all the details. When you get used to doing a board meeting, it can seem pretty rote and you may just think, oh, I've got it. I don't need to worry about it, but I encourage you to continue using that checklist because there's so many details and sometimes just checking things off as you go gives you this great sense of accomplishment and so check it off. Don't get so caught up in the routine that you miss one of those detailed items. I also encourage you to share your checklist with your manager or the board chair because they may have something that they want you to add that you wouldn't have had any clue about unless you talk to them. Prepare an outline for the minutes. It helps to have a template for taking minutes ready prior to the meeting that has the date, the time, location of the meeting already on it. Leave a space to write in the time that meeting is called to order. Add sections for the major items of the agenda and room for extra note taking. Whether this is electronic template or a form, either way it will serve you well. You want to write clear statements that summarize the meeting's main ideas and actions. Word decisions, motions, action items and deadlines exactly as a group makes them. If you are in doubt, ask the group for clarification and then you attach the agenda and any reports to the final copy of the meeting. Ultimately, meetings are all about communication. Whether collecting, sharing or problem solving, meeting effectiveness hinges on communication and preparation. And like all skills, this is a skill you can learn too. Whether or not you're preparing for a meeting, whether you're leading a meeting, whether it's a board meeting, it all comes down to having the details. This is a skill that you can learn. It all comes down to having the details. This blog will give you a quick intro on how to put those details together. I also encourage you to seek out the person who did these meetings before you. Hopefully they're still at your organization and if so, I encourage you to reach out to them and ask for them to be your peer while you learn how to do the board meetings and take care of all of the details. You can also reach out to me. I've been doing this for years and I would be happy to help you. I hope to see you at APC in New Orleans. I'm going to be there in September and I would love to connect with you. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure to be with you. Thank you.