AS I SEE IT


Running an Effective Board Meeting Tips on how to be most efficient and productive TERRY BOHLKE AND COLIN RORRIE


A strong, effec- tive board can transform an organization from good to


great and position your ASC as the leader in your market. Conversely, a weak, dis- engaged board can drive an organization slowly into the ground, making unin- formed decisions and missing com- petitive opportunities. Since you meet with your board only a limited number of times each year, the effectiveness of those meetings is an important aspect of the effectiveness of your board. For your board to be effective, it must be efficient with the use of its limited time. So here are some tips to facilitate the sharing of ideas, focus on the most important issues, move your meetings along and make your board vastly more effective:


1. Keep Your Agenda Strategic All too often, ASC boards are viewed simply as a necessary bureaucracy for updating policies and getting purchases approved. And it is easy to see why. After all, there are countless regulatory and accrediting standards that require board approval, and it is difficult to get all these requirements done and still have time for other items. If you view your board as an


approving authority, however, and not a governing body, then you are miss- ing out on the transformational oppor- tunity a great board can provide. The quintessential value of ASCs has been our ability to rapidly adapt to change and react to opportunity. These orga- nizational skill sets are not borne of boards that rubber stamp. Rather, the ASC industry has flourished as a result of innovative boards that pushed the envelope of innovation while stead- fastly protecting patient safety.


8 ASC FOCUS AUGUST 2016


Discussion Outline ■


■ ■


Background: Summarize the most relevant facts.


Strategic Purpose: Describe why this topic is so important.


Recommendation: Provide a recommendation from management.


■


Discussion Questions: List the questions you want the board to discuss.


If you want your board members


engaged, you have to make your board meetings strategic. If you are spending most of your board time approving poli- cies and regurgitating reports, your board will become bored and irrelevant. Prior to each board meeting, you should review your agenda topics carefully and ensure everything on your agenda is essential and the purpose is clearly defined. One way to keep your meeting stra-


tegic is to use your ASC’s strategic plan, if you have one, to drive the meet- ing agenda. Also, create a discussion outline for each topic that describes the strategic purpose for this item and the key discussion questions the board should consider. If you are struggling with the strategic purpose for this item or unable to list meaningful discussion questions, this might not be an item that warrants time on your agenda.


2. Put First Things First Board members want to have input and typically come to meetings ready to share. At some point, however, they fulfill this desire to share and start losing interest, especially in a long meeting. It is best to put your most important topics up front in your agenda. Otherwise, you might run out of time or your members might run out of steam.


Many agendas have the standard


“old business/new business” format. While this format might make sense for chronological order, it can cause your board to spend more time rehashing old topics and not enough time exploring new topics. Some leaders think it is better to get all the routine things out of the way and save the more strategic items for last. This will force your board to spend too much time with less important topics only to then rush through the most important. A good way to begin attacking this issue is to organize your meeting agenda around three sections: I. Strategic Action Items, II. Discussion Items and III. Information Only. That way, if you run out of time,


you will have covered the imperative topics first.


3. ‘Information Only’ and ‘Consent’ Sections On Your Agenda We all value our time, and your board members want to know that their time creates value for the ASC. It is painful for board members to sit in a meeting and have documents read to them. If a document requires no discussion, email it in advance and spend no meeting time on it. So many board meetings are full of seemingly endless orations on reports, updates and unsubstantial changes to policies and procedures. You don’t want your board members thinking, “Why do I need to be here when I could have read this on my own?” This does not mean key reports should not be addressed. Rather than going page- by-page through a large report, pull out the salient topics for focused discussion and email the full report.


Separate the items that require no


discussion into two categories: those that require approval and those that are infor- mational only. Email in advance the doc- uments for items that require approval but no discussion for members to read and study at their convenience. These could be non-controversial policies and


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