Board Meeting Minutes & The Four Social Styles

I’ve recently had numerous inquiries about board meeting minutes. (You can snooze now or later.) So I’ve been thinking about the four social styles (analytical, driving, amiable, and expressive)—and how each style might perform the duties of board secretary.

But first—a caveat and a short video. While governance gurus share numerous opinions on best practices for writing board meeting minutes, unless your bylaws or Board Policies Manual spell out the details, the board secretary has ample freedom. Click here to view this excellent four-minute video, “How to Record Board Minutes,” by Michael Martin, ECFA’s Executive Vice President. 

THE 4 SOCIAL STYLES AS BOARD SECRETARIES

THE ANALYTICAL BOARD SECRETARY.  According to the social style wisdom, an analytical is task-oriented and fact-oriented. Minutes from this person will likely be thorough, comprehensive, and detailed. Board members who miss a meeting will read the minutes and have a fairly complete picture of what happened.

“Due to the potential risks involved, the CEO was tasked with getting more facts about Project Twenty and bringing a more complete proposal back to the board which must include contingencies.”

THE DRIVING BOARD SECRETARY. Drivers are action-oriented and goal-driven. Speed is also an important value to the driver. Thus minutes will have a flavor of “just the facts” with little or no commentary. Between “the meeting was called to order” and “meeting adjourned,” the minutes will document board actions, but not much else. 

“We came. We voted. We adjourned.”

THE AMIABLE BOARD SECRETARY. Amiables are relationship-oriented (as opposed to task-oriented) and the minutes will often reflect this style. Amiables, like analyticals, tend to be slower-paced. Affirmations might populate the secretary’s warm commentary. (“The board gave the CFO a round of applause for the clean audit and her faithful service to our ministry.”)

“Thanks to our outstanding CEO, we enjoyed another grace-filled board meeting, accompanied by Mary’s delicious raspberry pie.”

THE EXPRESSIVE BOARD SECRETARY. Expressives are fun to be around (often hilarious), but they rarely agree to serve as board secretary. This style is fast-paced, highly emotive, and people-oriented versus task-oriented. Board minutes will highlight the BHAGs (Big Holy Audacious Goals), big ideas, future events, and parties. If there’s no party planned, the expressive will plan one.

“The bold thinking in the strategic plan presentation was awesome. The Century Campaign could impact millions and millions!”

CAUTION! In addition to understanding the four social styles, even more important is your ability to practice versatility in your relationships. Versatility is the measure of how others view your ability to adapt to different styles and situations. There is no good or bad style (we are all made in the image of God)—and thus there are no preferred board secretary styles (other than your own preference!).

REMINDER! Psalm 139:14 (NIV): “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made…”

BOARD DISCUSSION: It is time to refresh your board meeting minutes? Do your minutes accurately capture the board actions? What is your social style: analytical, driving, amiable, or expressive? What is the social style of your current board secretary?

MORE RESOURCES: Visit the “People Bucket” webpage for the book, Mastering the Management Buckets, and download the one-page resource, “Do’s and Don’ts for the Four Social Styles.”

INSPIRE YOUR BOARD! Inspire your board members to enrich their governance competencies at the ECFA Excellence in Governance Forums (eight cities, Fall 2019). 

Called to Serve: The Phone-Book-Size Board Packet Syndrome

Note: This is No. 19 in a series of blogs featuring wisdom from the 91-page gem by Max De Pree, Called to Serve: Creating and Nurturing the Effective Volunteer Board.

Max De Pree: “A friend told me recently that when he gets his agenda package only a day or two before the meeting, he knows he is not being taken seriously.”

In his two-page section on “Be a Good Communicator,” De Pree touches a raw nerve—one that board members whine about frequently. He notes that effective communication between the CEO, the board chair, and all board members involves:
   • Agenda packets arriving well in advance of the meeting
   • “Producing usable minutes of the meeting in a short time.”
   • Being a "lavish" communicator.

I was reminded of the helpful Harvard Business Review article, “What Makes Great Boards Great,” by Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld. He, too, whines about late-arriving board meeting materials:

“What kind of CEO waits until the night before the board meeting to dump on the directors a phone-book-size report, that includes buried in a thicket of subclauses and footnotes, the news that earnings are off for the second consecutive quarter? Surely not a CEO who trusts his or her board. Yet this destructive, dangerous pattern happens all the time.”

I know. I know. It’s very, very challenging to gather all the materials and documents and get them out the door to board members on a timely basis. Solution? Some boards memorialize the frequency of board reports (and arrival dates for board meeting pre-reading materials) in their board policies manual. (See Fred Laughlin’s and Bob Andringa’s excellent resource on BPMs here.)

Effective communication is fueled by trust. As Dan Busby writes in Trust: The Firm Foundation for Kingdom Fruitfulness, there are eight teamwork examples from the Old and New Testaments, noting that trust starts at the top. (Raise your hand if you’ve ever given a board devotional talk using Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from Daniel 3.) 

Busby also writes, “The largest penalty paid by Christ-centered ministries is the ‘low-trust’ penalty.” Have you ever connected the dots between effective board communication and God-honoring trust?

BOARD DISCUSSION: Does trust fuel our motivation for effective communication? Do we communicate lavishly? Do pre-meeting materials, reports, and minutes arrive with adequate time to reflect and discern next steps? Are board members being taken seriously?

To order from Amazon, click on the title for: Called to Serve: Creating and Nurturing the Effective Volunteer Board, by Max De Pree, (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company).