Publications

How to Shorten Your Meetings

Published April 16, 2003 as
‘Less is more’ when it comes to holding board meetings

Are you spending your entire life going to meetings? Are you tired, run-down, fatigued? Try Mother Fletcher’s “Meet Too Much,” and you will get fast relief.

Ask any veteran member of an association board of directors whether they can have a meeting in about an hour and most will tell you to keep looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

The typical association board of directors' meeting in its current form developed and perpetuated itself during the late 1970s and has evolved into the beast that devours board members (Meetzilla?). Ask any former director why he no longer serves on the board and it usually can be attributed to something stemming from a board meeting

Originally intended to mirror the business meeting of a corporation, many association meetings now resemble the atmosphere of the corporate lunchroom instead. Part of the problem can be a lack of education on the part of the directors; dominant owners overwhelming passive directors or the first board’s efforts to create a town meeting open atmosphere that turns into a union hall

For associations suffering from depleted volunteerism and board member self-immolation, it is suggested that the board look at its meeting schedule and how meetings are conducted in order to make them more "board member friendly", as well as "unit owner friendly". Here are some suggestions on how to have productive and efficient directors’ meetings:

Have a homeowners open forum before the meeting begins. Limit owners’ questions and comments to a defined length of time. NOTE - the homeowners forum is not the place to report maintenance requests unless the owner is having a problem receiving service. A period of 15 to 30 minutes should be sufficient time to answer most questions, then the session should end. Invite the members to stay and listen, but commence the board “business” meeting and limit it to board discussion only. Homeowner interchange should not take place during the board business meeting. If there are significant homeowner issues, a special meeting of members should be scheduled.
Start every meeting on time. Even if a quorum is not present, the homeowners forum, announcements and other items can be handled first until a quorum of the board is present and the Board can begin conducting business.
Schedule meetings on a night or day when your directors are most readily available. If the meeting begins too late in the evening or runs too long, thinking gets muddled and the irritability factor increases. People get tired and may gloss over important issues after having spent too much time on minor matters.
Prepare an agenda and have it available for all attendees. “Front load” the most important issues so they can be addressed while everyone is still fresh. Some boards have a tendency to nit-pick the unimportant things. The management report and minutes do not have to be read verbatim. Copies can be given to directors in advance to the owners who attend.
Alternate speakers of opposing points of view to avoid redundancy and limit the number of exchanges and the amount of time for discussion.
Set time limits for discussion in advance. This will create an expectation and encourage speakers to get to the point. Sometimes the president has to ask if anyone has something new to add and then move toward a vote.
The president or chairperson must control the agenda with a firm hand. If the president is a competent executive but not good at running the board meeting, select a chairman pro-tem, strictly for running meetings.
Consider scheduling significant issues requiring a more lengthy discussion for more than one meeting (towns sometimes have a workshop meeting before they go to a vote at an open meeting). For certain topics, an association board can have its workshops in closed session so the lengthy discussion can be disposed of and the debate and vote at an open meeting will require only a limited amount of time.
The president needs to sense when discussion is either becoming repetitive or everyone is in agreement and call for a vote. (This is known as beating a dead horse syndrome.)
Do not meet just for the sake of meeting. Condominiums and most other types of associations are only required to meet four times per year but have a tendency to “over-meet”. Expenditures already allocated in the budget do not have to be voted on more than once. Once a board reviews bids at a closed session, the vote at the open meeting can be brief. Tentative policy changes and disciplinary proceedings can be handled by the committee of the whole in closed session so long as any votes are conducted at a subsequent open meeting. If you meet monthly, consider canceling the December meeting and maybe one or two during the summer. Better yet, consider meeting every other month, or even quarterly.
Develop a rhythm for all meetings. Meetings should follow the same organizational structure month in and month out.

If the purpose of a meeting is merely to inform, the board should send out a newsletter. If actual business is going to be transacted and a vote will be taken, then the meeting will be productive and move along more swiftly with the help of a good facilitator.

The most important thing to remember when scheduling board meeting is “less is more.”