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How to Run Meeting and Make the Best Decision

Start with Goals


Two paths diverged in the woods. One goes to Heck, the other goes to Nirvana. The roads lead to
different destinations and they offer different journeys. The road to Heck is paved with good
intentions, while the road to Nirvana smells like teen spirit. With no goal in mind, either road will do.
You can just flip a coin. But the reason youre making a decision is because you either care about
where youll end up, or you care about the journey to get there. Otherwise, youd just flip a coin.
Youre in a decision-making meeting because you each have a goal. First agree on the goals.
Otherwise, no other part of decision-making will even make sense.
Bernice's goal is a lifestyle business thats fun to run and makes a decent living. Europa's goal is
complete and utter economic domination of the Western world. Leaving these goals unstated keeps
the discussion going in circles. By stating and discussing their individual goals, all parties can
eventually agree on the main goal. Europa came around to Bernice's point of view and the goal
became a fun, lifestyle business. As Bernice later explained it, "It's good to be the majority
shareholder.

Agree on Framing
You have your goal, now frame the specific decision. Framing is deciding how to express the
decision. The goal is a lifestyle business. The decision is about location. We could frame it several
ways:

Where can we locate a store to build a community of plant lovers?


Where can we sell the largest number of plants?
Where can we best serve customers?
How we frame the decision determines the options well consider. "Where can we locate a store?"
sends us out to analyze neighborhoods and rents. "Where can we sell the largest number of plants?"
sends us to look at different distribution channels, one of which might be retail stores. "Where can
we best serve customers?" sends us looking at customer wants. The group decided that for a lifestyle
business, a retail store with an in-person community is best. So they agreed to ask, Where can we
locate the store to build a community?

Choose Criteria
After framing, the group decides on criteria. Criteria are used to compare options against other.
When choosing a car, price and gas mileage are two criteria we might care about. Suitability for
carpooling in a post-apocalyptic world is a criterion we might not care about. Since the framing is set,
everyone will choose criteria related to the same framing, finding a retail location for a plant
community. The group quickly agreed on relevant criteria: walk-in traffic, monthly rent, and
convenient garbage disposal. (The Audrey 2 nursery seems to fill several trash bags each night.)

Agree on Process

Next, agree on how the decision will be made. How will you decide which
option wins? You can try for unanimous agreement. You can choose
majority vote. You can try a non-benevolent dictatorship.
Next, agree on how the decision will be made. How will you decide which option wins? You can try
for unanimous agreement. You can choose majority vote. You can try a non-benevolent dictatorship:
one person hands down a decision from On High and everyone else has to suck it up and live with it.
You can also choose a benevolent dictatorship where the benevolent dictator listens, before making
the decision.
Whatever process you choose, agree up front. Some decisions may call for unanimous agreement,
while others may best be done as a decision by the owner. When people agree on process first, then
even if that process chooses an option some people don't like, they'll usually agree to abide by the
decision. Even though she's the majority shareholder, Bernice has suggested that the location
decision be unanimous. This is a lifestyle business and we want to keep our team together and happy.
So we want everyone to agree with the decision, even if it takes longer to get full agreement.

Identify Options
At last, the process work is done! Its time to start generating options. You want to find
options after choosing the decision criteria and process. If you do it in the other order, you risk
having your choice of criteria or process biased by the options on the table. You don't want to choose
criteria and process to fit your options, you want to find options that fit a high-quality set of criteria
and a good decision process. You'll get better options if you have each person list ideas separately,
then share them together. If you brainstorm as a group, the options you get will cluster around one
set of ideas.
For example, Bernice wants a country storefront, Melvin favors a downtown location, and Europa is
convinced the suburbs are the route to world domination...er, I mean, building a satisfying lifestyle
business.

Decide
Finally, evaluate the options using the criteria you've chosen. Then use your agreed-upon process to
make your choice. After much discussion, the group agreed that the decision criteriawalk-in traffic,
monthly rent, and convenient disposal of the mysterious Audrey 2 trash bagswere only satisfied by
the downtown Financial District option. Melvin piped up, "Plus we're doing good for the world by
locating the Audrey 2 nursery by the Goldman Sachs parking garage." I have no idea what he's
talking about, but then, his brother Seymour would also occasionally come out with non-sequitors. I
just nod and smile. It makes life easier.

Conclusion

What makes life easier is running streamlined decision meetings. Start with your larger level goals
and agree on how you'll frame the decision. Choose your decision criteria and agree on your decisionmaking process. Identify your options, and then and only then, decide. Doing things in this order will
help you keep meetings to a minimum and decisions to a maximum. You just might save enough
time to go out for a picnic somewhere that's green.
-http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/productivity/meetings/how-to-run-a-decision-making-meeting?page=1

The Role of Board Chairs and Members


Board Chair Job Description
The following description was adapted from materials from BoardSource. Note that materials
apply to both forprofit and nonprofit unless otherwise noted.
1. Is a member of the Board
2. Serves as the Chief Volunteer of the organization (nonprofit only)
3. Is a partner with the Chief Executive in achieving the organization's mission
4. Provides leadership to the Board of Directors, who sets policy and to whom the Chief
Executive is accountable.
5. Chairs meetings of the Board after developing the agenda with the Chief Executive.
6. Encourages Board's role in strategic planning
7. Appoints the chairpersons of committees, in consultation with other Board members.
8. Serves ex officio as a member of committees and attends their meetings when invited.
9. Discusses issues confronting the organization with the Chief Executive.
10. Helps guide and mediate Board actions with respect to organizational priorities and
governance concerns.
11. Reviews with the Chief Executive any issues of concern to the Board.
12. Monitors financial planning and financial reports.
13. Plays a leading role in fundraising activities (nonprofit only)

14. Formally evaluates the performance of the Chief Executive and informally evaluates the
effectiveness of the Board members.
15. Evaluates annually the performance of the organization in achieving its mission.
16. Performs other responsibilities assigned by the Board.

Board Member Job Description


The following description was adapted from materials from BoardSource. Note that materials
apply to both forprofit and nonprofit unless otherwise noted.
1. Regularly attends board meetings and important related meetings.
2. Makes serious commitment to participate actively in committee work.
3. Volunteers for and willingly accepts assignments and completes them thoroughly and on time.
4. Stays informed about committee matters, prepares themselves well for meetings, and reviews
and comments on minutes and reports.
5. Gets to know other committee members and builds a collegial working relationship that
contributes to consensus.
6. Is an active participant in the committee's annual evaluation and planning efforts.
7. Participates in fund raising for the organization (nonprofit only)
-http://www2.nami.org/namiland09/CLDBoardMemJobDescription.pdf

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