Following up after a board meeting

Board meetings provide a valuable opportunity to touch base, refocus, and strategize how you plan to move forward. But for this time to be truly useful, you have to put your ideas and plans into action after the meeting.

Approve meeting minutes

Meeting minutes are the official record of what took place during a board meeting. Legally, board minutes have to accurately represent the attendees, agenda, and decisions of a meeting. Approving meeting minutes is the process of reviewing the minutes for accuracy and legally certifying them as part of the formal record.

How to approve meeting minutes

Send the minutes to your board chair first. Once you have their approval, send the board-chair-approved meeting minutes to the remaining board members. Every member of your board should receive a copy of the minutes, whether they attended the meeting or not.

Allow everyone the opportunity to dispute or clarify the content of the minutes. If someone raises a concern, bring the issue to your entire board for resolution. Minutes have to receive unanimous approval from all of your board members in order to be certified.

Once every board member agrees on the content of the minutes, collect signatures certifying each board member’s approval. This can either be done in person during a future meeting or remotely using e-signatures.

Make sure you save a copy of your approved minutes in a secure location that can be easily accessed by your board. Every member of your board should be able to reference these documents for future use.

Check out our template for approving meeting minutes

Debrief the meeting

Everyone on your team needs to be aware of important decisions that come out of board meetings.

Gather your leadership team and debrief the meeting, summarizing decisions, and discussing next steps. Your leadership team is responsible for helping you attain your business goals, so they need to have a comprehensive understanding of what you’re working towards. Give everyone the opportunity to ask questions and get clarification on any points that may be unclear.

These conversations will not only help you and your team stay aligned but may also surface questions that you need to take to your board. If that’s the case, promptly reach out to the relevant board member for clarification (a simple “I wanted to make sure we are on the same page” should work).

At the end of this conversation, your team should know exactly what your goals are for the next quarter.

Create action items and follow through

Goals provide direction for where you’re headed, but you have to figure out exactly how you’re going to get there. How will you consistently make progress toward each goal over the next quarter? Who is responsible for driving that progress? How will you determine priorities and allocate resources?

All of this needs to be discussed with your team and shared with your board for visibility and alignment. Work together to break each high-level goal into smaller to-do items. Then assign a specific person to take ownership of each task. This person could be someone from your internal team or a member of your board. Either way, make sure they know what work they’re responsible for.

Remember to keep track of your progress as you go—any advancement towards these goals is something you should send as an asynchronous update to your board. If priorities shift or roadblocks arise, you can always adjust your plan. Just be sure to keep a record of what changed and why. This increases transparency and accountability which, in turn, increases your board’s trust and confidence in your leadership.