A Direct Line Blog

By Donya Parrish, MCU VP Risk Management

Have you ever attended a board meeting and come away feeling like too few people were engaged in the discussions? It can be frustrating to wonder why some people never speak up or why others do all the talking. There are several factors that contribute to it, including personality and comfort with expressing ideas that may not be well-accepted.

Another factor in broad discussions at a board level comes down to the board chair’s role in setting the tone and encouraging all to participate. BoardSource recently had an excellent article on How Board Chairs Foster Board Engagement. In it, they gave four tips on how a board chair can foster board engagement:

1. Build Relationships as the Chair of the Board
2. Create Engaging Board Meetings
3. Ensure a Robust Committee Structure
4. Evaluate and Adjust Engagement Strategies

Whether you are the chair or a director, the tips given are relevant. After all, if you are going to commit to the membership to represent them on the board, why not make the most of your time and efforts? As the article intro states, “Successful organizations have engaged boards with members who are passionate about the organization’s mission and collective purpose, ask challenging questions, make informed decisions, collaborate, and promote the organization and its work to their networks.”

If you are looking for a way to make the shift from your current meeting culture to something more productive, Oprah Winfrey’s tip is to start every meeting with three questions:

• What is our intention for this meeting?
• What’s important?
• What matters?

If you have a method for getting board engagement, I would love to hear it. Drop me a note!