Board Research to Practice: Board Meetings

For many people, especially those new to board work, the belief is that the main work of the board takes place at official, formal meetings. In fact, a great deal of important work takes place outside of board meetings. Nevertheless, boards are required to hold formal meetings and the quality of those meetings can make a considerable difference to board effectiveness. Meetings that are poorly organized, go on too long,, go off on tangents instead of sticking to the point, or feature too many personalities can turn off even the most dedicated member and can cause serious damage by leading to poorly considered decisions. In this podcast, Profs Cafik and Murray explores board effectiveness in the board meeting context, challenges boards commonly experience with meetings, why they persist, and the research on what boards have changed to increase meeting effectiveness.