Q: 

"My board moved to remote meetings during the pandemic, and over the past year or so, it’s been like pulling teeth to get them to come back to in-person meetings. A third of the board is always joining remotely, and the engagement that we get from them is limited. Should we stop offering remote options and force everyone back to in-person meetings?"

 

A: 

This is a common challenge for many boards today. But before getting into the remote vs. in-person debate, let’s address the core issue: board engagement. It’s easy to blame virtual or hybrid meetings for engagement problems, but disengagement existed long before Zoom entered the picture. You need to start by diagnosing your board’s engagement issues, then find a way to design meetings that address those needs, whether that’s remote, in-person, or some combination of the two.

Diagnosing the real causes of disengagement at board meetings

Switching to in-person meetings won’t automatically fix your engagement issues. I recommend doing a board survey, or even better, having 1:1 conversations with your board directors to better understand what’s driving the engagement issues you’re noticing. Here are some common issues to watch out for:

• Lack of role clarity: When board directors don’t understand what they’re supposed to do, or why it matters, it leads to disengagement. Make sure that the board’s roles and responsibilities are clear to everyone, and that they understand their own individual responsibilities as a director. 
• Unclear expectations: Clearly defining expectations for participation in board meetings will go a long way to building a more engaged board. Clarify attendance requirements, participation norms, and expected contributions for directors at meetings.
• Superfluous or poorly facilitated meetings: If meetings are unproductive or poorly facilitated, people tend to check out. Consider rethinking the design, facilitation and frequency of board meetings. 
• Capacity issues: Changes in life circumstances can often lead to a shift in your directors’ capacity. Offering flexibility or addressing the constraint can be helpful; maybe they need to take a leave, maybe they need a few months of back-seat engagement, or maybe they need to step away from the board altogether.
• Equity barriers: We need to bring an equity lens to any conversation about engagement and participation. Are caregiving responsibilities making it difficult for directors to engage? Are younger directors swamped with multiple jobs? Are there access issues for disabled directors? Does public transit suck in your area? All of these barriers can be addressed through inclusive design to improve engagement across the board.

 Remember, remote meetings don’t cause disengagement, but it can highlight or exacerbate engagement issues that already exist. Before you make a decision about remote vs. in-person meetings, take the time to better understand any underlying engagement issues, or you’ll just end up in the same - or worse - situation.

Should you cut out remote meetings for your board?

You’re wondering if you should force your board to move to in-person meetings. The easy answer is: No. I don’t recommend you ‘force’ your board to do anything, much less change their meeting format! You risk losing a third of your directors, and creating a lot of ill will around the board table. But once you are clear on what the underlying engagement issues are, you can start a conversation with your directors about how to better enable their participation. And part of that conversation can be: what meeting format is most appropriate for our board? 

You may choose to move to a fully in-person meeting calendar, go with an all-remote approach, or try to split the difference in some way. In any case, you will want to ensure that you have the right skills and tools to plan, design and facilitate meetings for meaningful engagement in whatever format you choose. Here are a few considerations for each approach:

Fully in-person

This approach works best for community-based organizations that serve a limited geography, where all directors live in the same area and can easily travel to the meeting location. Boards who adopt this approach will want to address accessibility and equity barriers related to in-person sessions, which may include things like: providing childcare, travel reimbursements, a physically accessible space, etc. 

To be successful with this approach, make sure the expectation to always meet in-person is clear during your recruitment process, schedule your full year of meetings in advance, and minimize the number of meetings required. Strong facilitation is needed to ensure that unequal power dynamics don’t constrain the participation of directors, and clarity around engagement indicators can help identify and address issues with presenteeism. Boards who adopt a fully in-person approach should be prepared for a transition to remote meetings in unexpected or emergency situations (formalize what you learned during the pandemic!).

Fully remote

This approach can work for any organization, but especially those that serve a regional or national geography where directors may live quite far apart, or where travelling to meetings is a hassle or burden. A remote meeting schedule provides significant flexibility for directors, which  may reduce absences, and this approach can reduce many equity and accessibility barriers. While remote meetings can be more accessible for directors who live in rural communities, attention to challenges related to internet access is critical, and phone-in options can be a good solution. Investing in design and facilitation skills for remote sessions is essential to effective meetings, and establishing engagement norms tailored to the digital space will go a long way to addressing ‘ghost’ participants. Boards who adopt a fully remote approach should be prepared to shift into an alternative meeting format in emergency circumstances where telecommunications systems become unexpectedly disrupted (hello, climate change).

Hybrid meetings

Hybrid meetings have been around since the dawn of the conference call, and have become normalized as a middle-ground in the remote vs. in-person debate. The hybrid approach can provide flexibility for directors to engage in the way that works best for them, but it can often create two ‘tiers’ of engagement in meetings, leaving remote participants in the margins. Thoughtful design and facilitation of hybrid meetings is essential, but very challenging even for professional facilitators! In most cases, the hybrid approach is best reserved as a ‘back-up’ for boards who usually meet in person, rather than the established approach for all board meetings.

Mixed methods

The ‘mixed methods’ approach integrates both in-person and remote meetings into the board’s calendar, without the option for hybrid engagement. This approach is most effective when boards supplement a fully-remote meeting calendar with one or two in-person gatherings each year, intentionally designed to build relationships or a team dynamic. Integrating time for ‘social’ interaction in remote meetings can help sustain interpersonal relationships among directors, and ensuring that in-person events meet equity and accessibility needs will create a more seamless transition. This approach strikes a good balance between the flexibility and accessibility of online meetings, without sacrificing the ‘human’ element of working as a team.

Considerations for the debate about remote meetings

Discussing the best format for meetings with your board can be tricky. The debate about in-person vs. remote meetings has become quite fraught, driven by a complex mix of personal preferences, power dynamics, human nature and inexperience or discomfort with technology. It’s important to be aware of these dynamics, and understand how they may influence our discussions and decisions about board meeting formats. 

Navigating personal preferences

Some people really, really prefer to be in person, some people love engaging remotely. Most people fall somewhere in the middle. One of the things that makes it difficult to parse the remote vs. in person debate around board meetings is that many of us have a hard time distinguishing between broader considerations and our own personal preferences. 

It is important to acknowledge the personal preferences of those around the table, but preferences alone aren’t sufficient to drive a decision about in-person vs. remote meetings. Like all governance design choices, it’s important to build enabling infrastructure that serves the overall goals of the board, in a way that aligns with the organizational values, rather than letting individual preferences drive outcomes. 

Designing for human connection

One of the most common arguments against remote or hybrid meetings is that in-person engagement is inherently superior to anything that can happen digitally. And yes, it’s true that face-to-face connection is incredibly important for humans; there are weird and amazing things that happen in our brains when we are in proximity to other humans, and a lot of that can get lost in a Zoom call. 

But that doesn’t mean we have to connect face-to-face for every single meeting or aspect of our lives. I am far from convinced that hosting board meetings online deprives directors of valuable human connection. In fact, I would expect that in many cases, meeting remotely allows people to better allocate their own time and social bandwidth to prioritize more meaningful connections with friends, family, neighbours etc.  

Having said that, I have had many board directors tell me that building relationships with those around the board table is a big motivator and an important part of their experience. Unfortunately, many boards fall short in facilitating this kind of connection, even when they do meet in-person. More boards could be intentional in creating spaces where board directors can build interpersonal relationships and a ‘team’ culture. Fortunately, there are many ways to go about this, both in-person or remotely, and it can be handled as part of every board meeting, or nurtured in social or team-building events.

Bridging skills gaps

Any meeting can suck without some good planning, design and facilitation. If we collectively have a sense that remote or hybrid meetings are especially grueling, it’s only because fewer people have developed the design and facilitation skills needed to run effective remote meetings. 

Most of my work as a nonprofit consultant is managed remotely. I regularly facilitate 2 or 3 hour-long virtual meetings with boards and staff. We tackle complex decision-making, delve into tricky board dynamics, and build relationships in these sessions. And people walk away from those sessions energized and grateful for deep conversation and meaningful engagement. So I am very confident that remote meetings can achieve anything you want them to, if you invest in the right skills and tools. And these are skills that are absolutely essential in today’s landscape, so it’s well worth taking the time to learn how to run effective meetings online. 

Equity and accessibility considerations for board meetings

In many cases, remote meetings can address many of the equity concerns that constrain nonprofit boards. Remote meetings can improve accessibility in a significant number of areas, making it easier for people typically cut out of leadership spaces to join and contribute to boards. Of course, remote sessions aren’t universally accessible, and careful design will always be needed to identify and address equity and accessibility barriers. But compared to traditional, in-person meetings, the upside of remote meetings makes this approach a no-brainer for me, and far outweighs personal preferences for in-person engagements. Notice who pushes hardest for in-person meetings; often, they are individuals in more privileged social positions. When diversity, equity and inclusion is such a priority for boards, it’s important to weigh equity considerations first and foremost in the debate for or against remote meetings.

Choose Engagement, Not Just a Meeting Format

Your board’s success hinges not on where it meets, but how intentionally you design the experience for meaningful participation. Whether you gather around a table or connect online, addressing the root causes of disengagement, embracing inclusive practices, and investing in effective facilitation will ensure your meetings truly serve your organization's governance, and energize your board members along the way.

Big Takeaways

• Engagement Requires Intentional Design: Gathering in-person does not guarantee engagement - purposeful meeting design does, regardless of format.
  
  
• Align Your Meeting Format With Your Values and Goals: Select meeting formats that reflect your organizational context, values and governance goals.
  
  
• Recognize the Complexities of the Debate: Understand and navigate personal preferences, power dynamics, and technology challenges to arrive at the best solution for your board.