Four Reasons Why Monthly Board Meetings are Essential for Success

"What gets measured gets improved."

Wise words from Peter Drucker, the pioneering management theorist whose business strategy philosophies helped lay the foundation for the modern corporation.

Drucker's formulation is a succinct distillation of a key concept in smart business practice: Running an efficient, high-growth enterprise requires an effective mechanism for evaluating performance.

For most businesses, monthly board meetings provide the ideal context for taking such measurements. Yet too few small to mid-sized businesses make this a regular practice, perhaps believing that such meetings are the province of larger corporations.

To help illuminate the benefits of regular meetings, let's take a look at a few key reasons why they're important, and how they're best structured.

Monthly Board Meetings Help Identify Blind Spots

Failure to recognise organisational blind spots can have a devastating impact on the viability of a business. By meeting regularly, such blind spots may be quickly identified and corrected; waiting three months for a quarterly report to shed light on a problem can be disastrous.

It's absolutely imperative for small business owners to have a plan that outlines what success looks like and the objectives that are necessary to achieve it. Once this is accomplished, implementation of the plan and its ongoing progress can be reviewed at every meeting. Business owners can measure actual vs. expected progress and make determinations as to why or why not progress is being realised in a timely manner.

Accountability for Staying on Target With Key Performance Indicators

Regular meetings that include evaluation of key measureables and underlying data won't merely help you track progress, it will also give you deeper insight into the fundamental nature of your business.

It's critically important for business leaders to review data on a regular basis, as it allows them to discern important trends, patterns and weak spots. This practice also quickly builds financial literacy.

Have a Clear Agenda With Set Time Limits

Ariana Huffington of The Huffington Post said it best: “If we have a clear agenda in advance and we are fully present and fully contributing, the meetings do go much faster.”

Effective meetings require a structured meeting agenda and consistent reporting; occasional coffee chats or walk and talks won't cut it. If you want to build a high-performance business, you need rigorous analysis applied consistently. Setting a time limit for each meeting section often helps keep participants on track ensuring things run with greater efficiency.

Remember: A meeting without an agenda will achieve everything on it.

Make Your Meetings S.M.A.R.T.

When it comes to setting organisational objectives, it's best to make them specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely (the mnemonic acronym S.M.A.R.T. is a handy way to remember this).

 By applying these criteria to your organisational goals -- and using monthly meetings to rigorously analyse your progress -- you can set your business up for sustained growth.

How Nine Advisory Helps Business Owners Professionalise Their Meetings

Success doesn't happen by accident -- business owners need to take active steps to realise their vision. At Nine Advisory, our services are aimed at helping small to mid-sized business owners implement the necessary systems and processes to build a professional, sustainable, high-performance enterprise.

For businesses seeking help with monthly meetings, we offer a free downloadable meeting template that can be customised and branded to suit your own objectives.

Nine Advisory is the kind of business advisor Sydney enterprises can trust to deliver results that move the needle. We urge you to schedule a call with our lead advisor today to learn more about what our Nine Pillar framework can do for you.