5 effective communication skills in meetings

Board members and business professionals spend the majority of their workdays in meetings, whether that’s around a conference room table, on the phone, or in front of their laptops on a video call. Regular meetings are crucial for any board of directors. It’s time they use to discuss strategic objectives, manage crises, and cast votes on important matters.

Unfortunately, not all meetings are productive or easy. Some can be downright painful. 

Board meetings can quickly become unproductive due to poor planning, lack of focus, and ineffective chairing of meetings. These issues often stem from unclear agendas, inadequate preparation, or a failure to manage meeting time and discussions efficiently. The result: meetings fail to achieve their intended goals or make meaningful progress.

Communicating effectively in board meetings is one way to get more tasks accomplished, ensure good governance, and keep board members engaged.

Here are 5 skills to help you improve your communication skills as it relates to board meetings:

Skill #1: Listen closely and pay attention to body language as well as verbal and nonverbal cues

For face to face interactions as well as online board meetings, body language and nonverbal cues including facial expressions communicate a lot, implicitly. Active listening is also an important communication technique that involves fully focusing on, understanding, and responding to the speaker. Effective communication in board meetings also means waiting for someone to finish speaking before interjecting your own point or argument.

Consider these tips:

• Keep your arms uncrossed and your hands visible to appear more approachable and receptive. Show you’re engaged in the conversation by nodding and leaning in slightly.
• Give regular eye contact back to the person speaking and engaging with what they’re saying. Nod your head when a board member is speaking to acknowledge that you’ve heard and understood what they’ve said.
• If you’re participating in an online meeting, consider turning on your camera so that the speaker can see that you’re listening closely to what they’re saying (and they avoid feeling like they’re just speaking to a blank screen).
• Watch for nonverbal cues from your colleagues that may suggest they’re a bit bored or getting distracted (perhaps they’re yawning or picking up their smartphones). Consider moving on to a different topic or shifting gears to invite their questions.

Skill #2: Present confidently and stay focused

Presenting with confidence and maintaining focus are crucial skills for effective board meetings. Your demeanor and delivery can significantly impact how your message is received and how engaged your audience remains. By employing a few key strategies, you can enhance your presence and keep the board’s attention as you present.

Consider these tips:

• Sit up straight and look people in the eye (or look into your camera) regularly, instead of focusing on just your notes or your presentation. When you make eye contact, you build a sense of trust and come across as more sincere. Board members are more likely to listen closely.
• To keep the energy high, consider doing your presentation from a standing position or walking around the room.
• Use a calm tone of voice to help encourage open and productive discussions.
• Tell stories or use analogies to help make complex information more relatable and memorable.
• Incorporate clear, concise visuals to support your points and maintain interest.
• End with a clear call to action that summarizes the key takeaways and outlines the next steps.

Skill #3: Come to the meeting prepared 

It’s not uncommon for directors to travel a lot, have a full-time job, and sit on other boards. Board administrators also have busy and demanding roles, and generally work on small but mighty teams. Making sure everyone is prepared for the meeting is crucial, and also helps make meetings more efficient. 

Board portal software helps admins easily create board packets digitally so that directors are well prepared when they arrive and can contribute in meetings. Engaging directors requires making communication simple and convenient, including providing easy access to any updates to board materials with no document version confusion. In Aprio, directors can also add their annotations directly to digital documents, even when they’re offline, as well as share notes with other board members ahead of the meeting.

At board meetings, the agenda can include links to key documents, reminding directors which materials relate for discussion and providing linked access without any delays in the meeting.

See related: The ultimate guide to effective board meeting agendas

With board management technology, what you’ll get is a paperless board meeting that sets the stage for more effective communication because you won’t waste time addressing missing documents or covering issues that have already been discussed in the board portal. 

Skill #4: Facilitate the meeting flow

While keeping to an agenda is a crucial way to stay focused, there’s nothing wrong with introducing something new during a board meeting to inspire the board of directors and keep everyone interested. Just like effective communication in business meetings, it’s important to share relevant and inspiring news stories, a happy anecdote, or a new video about your organization’s activities.

But sometimes meetings lose momentum, or directors disengage because one person is monopolizing the conversation and others don’t feel heard. The board chair plays an important facilitator role in guiding discussions, ensuring all voices are heard and that the conversation stays focused on the agenda.

Consider these tips:

• Manage the flow of the meeting to ensure each agenda item is given appropriate time for discussion while also keeping the meeting on track.
• Recognize when to allow deeper exploration of a topic and when to steer the conversation back to the main objectives.
• Draw out input from quieter members, not just to avoid directors zoning out, but to ensure all board members contribute a voice on important issues.
• Synthesize different viewpoints into a cohesive direction for the board.
• Ask clarifying questions to ensure decisions are made with full consideration of diverse perspectives.

Skill #5: Summarize the meeting & establish next steps

Before the meeting is over, take the time to quickly recap what you’ve covered and list out any next steps that need to happen before you meet again. While we all do our very best to listen well during a meeting, not everyone is going to remember every point made by the speakers. Effective communication in a business meeting should include listing out the key points of the meeting and the related action items. 

Your board admin can easily upload the meeting minutes as well as assign tasks to board members in your board governance software after the meeting. With Aprio, you can capture minutes, assign tasks, and approve motions while your board meeting is underway, and share minutes when it’s over.

See related: How to take minutes at a board meeting

Aprio’s Board Task Manager also makes it easy to track action items and see which tasks got accomplished and what’s still outstanding. Encouraging accountability to follow through on task commitments is the final step of effective communication skills in meetings.

Using technology to enhance board communication

Being a good communicator requires a strong ability to communicate both verbally and in writing, coupled with emotional intelligence to navigate complex discussions and foster collaboration among the board. Effective written communication and the ability to convey ideas clearly are also essential skills for ensuring productive and focused board meetings.

Board portal software improves board communication by centralizing all meeting materials, enabling secure and real-time document sharing, and connecting board members with collaboration tools including online chat. With more timely access to information, board members can communicate more effectively, whether they’re reviewing documents, voting on decisions, or engaging in discussions before, during, and after meetings.

Ready to improve how your board communicates in and out of board meetings? Consider using Aprio board management software to better prepare board members, run online or hybrid board meetings and encourage inclusive participation with tools like surveys, polls and online voting. Talk with our team and we’ll happily answer your questions and show you how it works.