Board members often experience loss of focus during meetings, which can affect decision-making, productivity and creative thinking. Three aspects that are generally vital during board meetings. Studies have shown that board members do not maintain constant levels of attention during meetings. A meeting slump is very common among board members. As a board member or Executive Director, you can play a key role in keeping the board engaged and focused on what’s important. But only if you maintain focus throughout the meetings yourself. This article provides board members and executives with some tips and tricks on how to stay focused during meetings and prevent them from entering a meeting slump. 1: Enter the meeting actively Even better than defeating a meeting slump, is preventing a meeting slump. One way to do this is doing something active right before the meeting. Physical activity helps you focus, because it arouses your brain. This doesn’t […]
Make short shrift with old meeting rules!
Has your employer already fully embraced ‘The New Way of Working’? In organisations that have adopted the New Way of Working really seriously, you work when and where you want. It might be from your home office, from the office of a client or in a café, early in the morning or late at night – it really doesn’t matter. There are no problems as long as employees deliver their work as agreed. The result is that increasingly more offices are being laid out with a maximum number of fixed workstations. The rest of them are flexible workstations. New Meeting Rules If you and your colleagues are already used to the New Way of Working, why still hold your meetings in the old-fashioned way? Is it really necessary that everyone religiously attends the weekly meeting? Even though they may not have a lot of news to tell? Just ask yourself. […]
Webinar – A showcase of the iBabs board portal
We’re inviting you to a special webinar to show you exactly how the iBabs board portal works. Presenter Richard Sealey will walk through the special features, as well as talk about a very practical approach to implement a digital board portal. You’ll learn more about: A real life example of how to best introduce a new paperless board meeting solution to your board How to get even the most anti-digital users love and embrace a paperless solution A rundown of iBabs, our board portal solution The functionalities that made my former board say “why didn’t we have this before?” when they finally got to use iBabs And much more… P.S.: If you’re not entirely happy with your current solution, or you’re just starting the journey of going paperless, then I’d wholeheartedly recommend attending this webinar. This webinar will be presented by: Richard Sealey, UK Ireland & Nordics Sales Manager at iBabs […]
How board secretaries can create an effective agenda for board meetings
An agenda is the backbone of any board meeting. It sets the tone, helps prevent board members from getting distracted or off-track and contributes to an effective board meeting. At least, that’s if you have a great board meeting agenda. But a lot of board meetings take place with a not so great agenda. The result? Long meetings, that often go off-track and are nothing close to productive. As a board secretary, you have the responsibility to create an agenda for your board’s meetings that facilitates efficiency. This guide is here to help you. 1: Make the objective clear Every meeting should achieve the objective(s) for which the meeting was set up in the first place. Without an objective, the meeting would be unnecessary, right? Clear objectives set clear expectations. This is why you should explain the objectives of the meeting in the agenda. In this way, all the present […]
4 trends in municipal meetings
2017 is an important year for Dutch municipalities. After all, it was agreed in the coalition agreement that companies and citizens should be able to handle all of their official matters digitally by this year at the latest. This means digitizing lot of work processes. But digitization is also penetrating the meeting room, which is no less than logical. Why should we continue to hold meetings in the old-fashioned way when the municipal organisation is changing as a whole? The following trends show that although municipal meetings will continue to exist, they will inevitably change in terms of form. Trend 1 – A different sort of meeting How many of your colleagues still base their meetings on paper? Actually, no more than 10% of council members still use paper documents entirely. You could say that these colleagues are almost an extinct species in most municipal meeting rooms. The rest of […]
Meeting trends to make your resolutions succeed
Lists of trends – what’s hot and what’s not – are always a popular item at the start of any new year. We think that a list of meeting trends for 2017 should certainly be among them. So that’s why we’ve identified a number of trends of which we would like to feature two in this blog. Both trends relate to one of the most common New Year’s resolutions – to live healthier and with less stress! Although it’s not always easy to keep to your resolutions, we’re sure that you would like to succeed this year. So why not take full advantage of these meeting trends? Meeting trend 1: healthy meetings After the traditional December blow-out, many Dutch people want only one thing in January – to live healthier. But wouldn’t it be great if doing that was not just restricted to your spare time? Wouldn’t it be better […]
Meetings in 2017
Did you know that in the Netherlands we spend a quarter of our working hours in meetings? You have only to calculate how many hours that is per year to see that it should really be rather less in 2017. Or more efficient anyway. And certainly if you’re the one who has to prepare the meeting.In this blog, you’ll read how to make a fresh start with your meetings in the new year. Meetings are here to stay There will always be meetings because there will always be a need for democratic decision-making. But most people are not exactly excited by the prospect of yet another one. The fact is that they use up a lot of energy and time and don’t always lead to the desired result. But it can be different. Less useless work Close your eyes and just imagine. No more endless toing and froing to the […]
Welcome to the meeting of the future
Pop your VR glasses on. Have they started already? No! “Welcome”! says a colleague, with a smile. “Take a seat!” You sit down on your virtual chair and the meeting can start. Is this the future? Maybe, but if so the meeting of the future is closer than we think. Perhaps not yet with Virtual Reality, but certainly digitally and in the cloud. Few subjects are spoken and written about as much as meetings. And new forms of meeting are constantly emerging, such as stand-up meetings, scrum meetings or walking meetings. Every trick in the book is being used to make this activity more efficient, above all, and sometimes even more enjoyable. Which is only logical, especially when you consider that meetings swallow up 10% of our working hours. The New Way of Working = The New Way of Meeting But does all this time-saving actually pay off? What’s the […]