The board of directors governs the company by making decisions or setting policy. In most organizations, the decision-making process is a www.boardmeetingpro.net majority vote of the board. Your board must have clear rules for meetings and guidelines to ensure a smooth decision-making process.
The meeting rules that the majority of boards follow are based off Robert’s Rules of Order, an English Parliamentary rule book that was written by American General Henry M. Robert in 1876 to prevent meetings from getting chaotic. While the application of Robert’s Rules of Order may not be necessary for every board, the use of formal guidelines can help create a framework that ensures the fairness of debates in a digital or hybrid meeting in which directors might be lost in a sea of faces on the computer screen.
This includes ensuring that the agenda is concise and clear. In order to do this, board documents that are well-written must be prepared and distributed prior the meeting to ensure that directors are ready to discuss. It’s also crucial to limit the time that is devoted to reports and routine matters which can quickly drag down the time of a meeting.
Other rules for meetings include the limitation of how many times a speaker can speak on any given motion (two minutes) and ensuring that all speakers remain relevant to the issue at hand. Motions that cause tension or a heated discussion can be closed by an overwhelmingly voted vote. To avoid unnecessary time, it is crucial that everyone respects one another and does not undermine the other members’ motives or uses derogatory words.