Rules for Board meetings are designed to keep meetings on pace, ensure discussion is fair and provide a structure for discussion of crucial business issues. These rules are as essential as ever, particularly when meetings are boardpaq is changing the way boards understand and process information held in a virtual or hybrid format.
Board directors should be prepared for every board meeting. They should have read the documents for the board prior to their arrival. They should also bring with any ideas or questions they might have on topics that will be discussed. Directors should be prepared to answer questions during the meeting from other members. This will help in achieving the main goal of a board that is to establish business-wide strategies and to define the team’s efforts toward these goals.
To be able to speak at the board meeting, a director must raise their hands and wait to be asked to make any statement or pose a question. Directors should speak only on the matters they have expertise in, or on the questions that were discussed during the meeting. It is not appropriate for directors to give lengthy speeches about themselves, or to criticize other members of the board.
The chair may limit the number who can discuss a specific issue and end the discussion by voting. In addition, the chair may abort the meeting upon request of any Director. Directors on boards may also make use of an issue of privilege to discuss urgent matters that aren’t related to motions pending for example, excessive background sound or an emergency situation which must be addressed immediately.