Does your board have one or more ex-officio board members? Maybe your committees have some ex-officio members, too? Well, let’s have a quick discussion about what it means for folks on your board, committees, or other deliberative bodies who you consider to be “ex-officio.”
What does it actually mean?
The phrase ex-officio doesn’t actually describe the status of a member at all; rather, it describes how they got there; ex officio
is a Latin phrase, used back in the days of the Roman Republic, meaning “from the office,” intending to convey that something is by virtue of holding office.
Usually, people are elected or appointed to a board; someone who becomes a board member because of a position or office that they hold outside of the board is considered to have that board seat on an ex-officio basis. For example, at British Columbia universities, the dean of a faculty serves on the university senate because they’re a dean. If someone is appointed as a dean, they automatically become a senator; if they stop being a dean, they stop being a senator.
Being an “ex officio” member is not a restriction
Being an ex-officio board member does not carry any automatic restrictions, unless they’re set out in the bylaws. If you’re an ex-officio member, you can participate in debate, and you have a vote at meetings. You can’t be forced to leave executive (or “in camera”) session, and you’re responsible, in your role as a board member, for acting in the best interests of the organization.
According to Robert’s Rules of Order
, if an ex-officio board member is a member of the organization, and is under the control of the organization, then that ex-officio board member is treated in all respects exactly as you would treat any other member of the board. They have the same privileges as would any other board member, as well as the same duties and obligations.
If an ex-officio board member is not
a member of the organization nor under its control, then they have the same privileges and rights as any other board member -- there’s still no restriction on the rights of that board member to attend meetings and to vote on issues (again, unless the bylaws explicitly restrict the rights of those ex-officio board members). However, they would probably not have some of the same obligations and accountabilities as do other board members.
Quorum tips for ex-officio members
If an ex-officio member is also a member of the organization, and is under the organization’s control, then they’re treated just like any other member for the purposes of quorum; so, their attendance affects the calculation of quorum, as would anyone else.
(The only exception to this is when the bylaws state that a president or board chair is a member, ex-officio, of all of the board’s committees; in this case, this is intended to give the president the ability
, but not the obligation
, to attend these meetings, and so their attendance does not affect quorum, unless the president is also an elected or appointed member of the committee in their own right).
If an ex-officio member is not
a member of the organization, and is not under the organization’s control, then their attendance does not affect quorum. For example, if a student society were to make the university president an ex-officio member of the student society board (but, I mean, don’t do that), then the university president would have the right
to attend the student society board meetings, and to debate and vote -- but they would not count toward quorum.
About the author
Christopher Girodat is currently the executive director of the Capilano Students’ Union, and has nearly a decade of experience in executive and management-level leadership roles. He’s a shameless “good governance” junkie (although it took him a while to get there), a video game nerd still starving for Breath of the Wild (still haven’t played it), a politics watcher, and someone weirdly interested in privacy law and occupational health and safety.
(Yes, I understand how odd this choice seems – but I honestly believe that executive directors out there, myself included, are thirsty
to be held more accountable, and to be given the level of responsibility and judgement that enables that accountability relationship to be crystal clear. Also, this is personal writing, and doesn’t necessarily reflect the views of the Capilano Students’ Union.)
A non-profit board is responsible for governing the association, and the executive director is responsible for managing the association’s operations (usually with the assistance of several staff). Chances are that you’re already familiar with this concept, though – and, in any case, that’s not what today’s blog post is about. This post is about how a board can ensure that it has the perspective
necessary to discharge its governance responsibility.
It’s an acknowledged principle in the “governance world” that several of the board’s members – a clear majority, preferably – should be “independent” of the association’s operations. This means that they should not have staff or staff-like responsibilities, and they should not be deeply involved in your non-profit’s day-to-day operations. This ensures that the board can provide an effective check on management, independent of your executive leadership team.
There are a ton of reasons to ensure that your non-profit board includes independent directors; in today’s post, we’re really focusing on how keeping individual board members out of day-to-day operational decision-making can improve the accountability relationship between the board and the executive director (and, by extension, to better enable the board to insist on better results).
Imagine this situation:
Your non-profit board approves the development and launch of a membership awareness campaign on a specific policy issue. Your board approves the budget, core principles, and expected outcomes for the campaign – and then delegates the day-to-day operational details of your campaign not to your executive director and staff, but to a board member.
Instead of relying on the expertise of the executive director and the staff to develop and launch the campaign, the board in this example has blurred the line between governing and managing. The executive director is not empowered to manage the details of the campaign; and, so, if the campaign is unsuccessful, or if the lead board member’s direction was ineffective, is it fair for the board to hold the executive director accountable for the campaign’s performance?
No, not really.
Imagine this situation, instead:
Your non-profit board approves the budget, principles, and expected outcomes of a membership awareness campaign – but this time, the board directs management to carry out the campaign (with the staff), and to keep the board chair informed if the board’s intervention might help to overcome any substantial threats or challenges to the campaign’s success.
The executive director is now responsible for developing and launching a campaign – for consulting the board as much as is needed (maybe even engaging with the board’s membership committee, to access the perspectives of members as stakeholders), and for abiding by any “no-go zones” or restrictions that the board might have set in advance.
Individual board members might contribute some volunteer time to the campaign, and provide feedback, but upon the executive director’s request. The board approves what
needs to be done, and the executive director decides how
it should be done – and that includes individual board members’ involvement in decision-making surrounding the campaign’s operational details.
Now, if the campaign goes well, the board can celebrate that they governed the event appropriately, and that the executive director managed the event well. If the campaign doesn’t work, then the board has a clear accountability relationship with the executive director, who presumably had all the tools and resources that they needed; and this opens a clearer governance path if the board needs to take a harder look at the executive director’s performance.
So, yes, please hold us executive directors accountable for the work that we do. But you also need to make sure that we have a level of responsibility that justifies that accountability.
About the Author
Christopher Girodat is currently the executive director of the Capilano Students’ Union, and has nearly a decade of experience in executive and management-level leadership roles. He’s a shameless “good governance” junkie (although it took him a while to get there), a video game nerd still starving for
Breath of the Wild
(darn this busy summer), a politics watcher, and someone weirdly interested in privacy law and occupational health and safety.
We see them in organizations all the time: the overzealous meeting chair; the obsessive defender of the small-print technicalities in Robert’s Rules of Order; the “meeting warrior” who uses deeply detailed knowledge of parliamentary procedure as a weapon against their colleagues (rarely for the right reasons, and often just because “these are rules, damn it!”). Worse than these, even, is the meeting chair who sits back and lets board or committee members fumble around, looking for the right wording or the right procedure to use.
If you read this blog title and thought “Ooh, is this a blog post about how to appeal the decisions of meeting chairs?!,” and felt unbridled excitement, then I’m glad you’ve joined us—because there’s a good chance that if this excites you, then you’re exactly the kind of parliamentary procedure aficionado who needs this intervention (rather than yet another misguided article on how to turn your meeting into a weird reproduction of a broken national legislature).
See, here’s the thing about parliamentary procedure in a non-profit setting: very few people around a meeting table actually need to know very much at all about parliamentary procedure. (And if you’re shocked by this statement, then please, read on; understand that this confession is coming from a recovering “meeting warrior,” and as someone whose slide deck for training folks on parliamentary procedure used to include forty-something possible motion types, including bizarre, outlandish things like motions “to consider the resolution seriatim.” Oof.)
There are only a handful of people at any given meeting who actually need to have any in-depth knowledge of your non-profit’s parliamentary authority (such as Robert’s Rules)—first, your meeting chair; and, second, if you’re lucky enough to have one, the staff member supporting your meeting group, whether that’s a professional secretary to your board, or a committee assistant. (If you are lucky enough to have staff, the bulk of the knowledge on your parliamentary authority should be on their side of things, and they should be a trusted adviser and consultant to the meeting chair—but more on that in another post.)
As meeting chair, there are a few things that you can do to help keep your meeting moving smoothly, and to ensure that the folks on your board or committee are able to follow the meeting and to participate fully. Some of these are not only best practices, but are already included in your parliamentary authority’s too-often-forgotten rules for chairing meetings.
Your members are volunteers, not parliamentary clerks
We need to remember that, for most of us in the nonprofit world, our board and committee members are not aspiring to work at the clerk’s table in the House of Commons. These folks are typically volunteers, and are here to contribute their time and their expertise to make our communities better places; we shouldn’t discourage them from participating by pushing back when resolution language might come to us in an ever-slightly imperfect form. They’re here to provide strategic leadership and direction to our organizations, not to wax poetic about Robert’s Rules.
If you can clearly discern someone’s objective in proposing an action, but there’s a bit of work needed to word the motion in the way that your organization requires (for whatever reason), then for goodness’ sake, just help them with wording. (You can rely on the assistance of your staff, too, who may be a lot faster at pulling that language together; just make sure that you or your staff check in with the person proposing the motion to make sure that it matches the intent of their proposal, before you state it back to the board or committee to make it official.)
Remember, the meeting chair is a facilitator, not the Robert’s Rules police.
Repeat yourself, all the time
This can take some getting used to, but believe me, it will make an immediate difference to your effectiveness as chair, and the effectiveness of your meetings. When a motion is moved and seconded, and the wording is ready to go, read the motion out loud to the group to open debate. This can be especially helpful on volunteer boards and committees, where the proposals coming from your members can often be pretty casual and informal (which is usually just fine).
For example:
- Member A: “I’ll move the report.”
- Member B: “Seconded.”
- Chair: “It’s been moved, and seconded, that the report of the finance committee be approved. Is there any debate?”
This makes sure that there is no confusion among your board or committee members, and it doesn’t assume any level of knowledge about the practices of your board or committee, or knowledge about where you are on the agenda. The proposal is crystal clear.
Consider repeating yourself during that debate, too. I have attended plenty of meetings where, ten or 15 minutes into a debate, someone calls out, “What’s the motion, again?” When I have the privilege of acting as meeting chair, I’ve adopted the practice of reminding folks after every three or four speakers. This also has the side-effect of keeping your meeting participants closer to the topic as the debate “evolves.” This doesn’t have to seem awkward or stunted, either:
- Chair: “The next speaker, on the motion to approve the finance committee’s report, is…”
Lastly, and perhaps more important than either repeating the motion to kick things off, or repeating the motion during the debate, is re-stating the motion just before it comes to a vote. This is especially important when things start to get complicated, such as when there are amendments being considered, or motions to refer a proposal back to a committee. You want to be sure that every person casting a vote knows exactly what the requested decision is.
If folks are awkwardly looking to their left and right when a motion comes to a vote, tentatively raising their hand to respond to the rest of the movement in the room, that’s not a failure of the board or the committee—that’s a failure on the part of the meeting chair to facilitate effectively.
Here’s an example of how to do this:
- Chair: “That’s it for the speakers list, and so we’re going to go to a vote. To be clear, we are about to vote on whether to refer the finance committee’s report back to the finance committee for revisions. So, on referring the report back to finance...all those in favour?”
As a meeting chair, if you really commit yourself to framing the start and end of each debate with a re-reading of the motion, and if you give your board or committee members occasional reminders during the discussion, you will discover very quickly that your meeting is being much more effectively facilitated, and that your volunteers are more present and aware. This also relieves your meeting participants from having to keep track of stacks of amendments and incidental motions—which is perfectly fair, because that’s your job, not theirs.
Be a proactive facilitator
As a meeting chair, you are not just there to call out the occasional motion and to take a vote, you’re also there to facilitate the work of the meeting group. A big part of meeting facilitation is ensuring that everyone has access to the information that they need to participate fully in that group’s discussion and decision-making work.
It is going to sometimes happen that one of your meeting attendees (maybe because they’re just a bit more experienced with parliamentary procedure, or because—oh, dear—they’re a “meeting warrior”) moves a motion at one of your meetings that’s a bit more “advanced.” In cases like this, if you have a reasonable belief that the folks around the table are going to be at a bit of a loss as to what happens next, then you have a job to do: slow things down and explain it to them.
For example:
- Member C: “I move an objection to the consideration of this question.”
- Member D: “Seconded!”
- Chair: “An objection to the consideration of the question has been moved and seconded. Okay, let’s hold on for a moment. For the benefit of board members, let me explain: a motion to ‘object to the consideration’ is a motion that, if approved, would stop us from considering the motion to approve the finance committee’s report. An objection is non-debatable, and so we’re going to go directly to a vote. If you are in favour of stopping the finance committee’s report from being considered, vote ‘yes’; if you oppose, the objection, and would like the chance to consider the finance committee’s report, vote ‘no.’ Okay, we’re voting on whether the objection is sustained: all those in favour?”
If a motion reaches a result out of procedural trickery, that differs from the decision that would have been made had board or committee members fully understood what was happening, then that is a failure in governance and meeting facilitation. It’s even more important that you fully understand what’s happening—if someone shows up and starts grandstanding using “the rules,” feel free to have the group stand by while you consult staff and other resources for answers. Never allow someone to overwhelm the meeting chair, or the group, using arcane procedures.
Conclusion
Following the three tips above can go a long way to making your meetings more accessible and approachable for your meeting participants. These tips allow meeting attendees, with next to no knowledge of parliamentary procedure, to walk into a meeting with nearly no introduction to the rules, without getting left behind. (I should note, of course, that I still encourage an effective onboarding process for new board and committee members.)
With the guidance of an effective meeting chair, you can level the playing field between some of your parliamentary authority’s “advanced users” (both the well-intentioned ones, and those who think Robert’s Rules is nothing more than a handy smoke grenade to toss out in the middle of a contentious meeting) and the rest of your meeting attendees. (And by “the rest of your meeting attendees,” I mean “normal, reasonable people.”)
About the Author
Christopher Girodat is currently the executive director of the Capilano Students’ Union, and has nearly a decade of experience in executive and management-level leadership roles. He’s a shameless “good governance” junkie (although it took him a while to get there), a video game nerd still starving for Breath of the Wild (darn this busy summer), a politics watcher, and someone weirdly interested in privacy law and occupational health and safety.
Does your board have one or more ex-officio board members? Maybe your committees have some ex-officio members, too? Well, let’s have a quick discussion about what it means for folks on your board, committees, or other deliberative bodies who you consider to be “ex-officio.”
What does it actually mean?
The phrase ex-officio doesn’t actually describe the status of a member at all; rather, it describes how they got there; ex officio
is a Latin phrase, used back in the days of the Roman Republic, meaning “from the office,” intending to convey that something is by virtue of holding office.
Usually, people are elected or appointed to a board; someone who becomes a board member because of a position or office that they hold outside of the board is considered to have that board seat on an ex-officio basis. For example, at British Columbia universities, the dean of a faculty serves on the university senate because they’re a dean. If someone is appointed as a dean, they automatically become a senator; if they stop being a dean, they stop being a senator.
Being an “ex officio” member is not a restriction
Being an ex-officio board member does not carry any automatic restrictions, unless they’re set out in the bylaws. If you’re an ex-officio member, you can participate in debate, and you have a vote at meetings. You can’t be forced to leave executive (or “in camera”) session, and you’re responsible, in your role as a board member, for acting in the best interests of the organization.
According to Robert’s Rules of Order
, if an ex-officio board member is a member of the organization, and is under the control of the organization, then that ex-officio board member is treated in all respects exactly as you would treat any other member of the board. They have the same privileges as would any other board member, as well as the same duties and obligations.
If an ex-officio board member is not
a member of the organization nor under its control, then they have the same privileges and rights as any other board member -- there’s still no restriction on the rights of that board member to attend meetings and to vote on issues (again, unless the bylaws explicitly restrict the rights of those ex-officio board members). However, they would probably not have some of the same obligations and accountabilities as do other board members.
Quorum tips for ex-officio members
If an ex-officio member is also a member of the organization, and is under the organization’s control, then they’re treated just like any other member for the purposes of quorum; so, their attendance affects the calculation of quorum, as would anyone else.
(The only exception to this is when the bylaws state that a president or board chair is a member, ex-officio, of all of the board’s committees; in this case, this is intended to give the president the ability
, but not the obligation
, to attend these meetings, and so their attendance does not affect quorum, unless the president is also an elected or appointed member of the committee in their own right).
If an ex-officio member is not
a member of the organization, and is not under the organization’s control, then their attendance does not affect quorum. For example, if a student society were to make the university president an ex-officio member of the student society board (but, I mean, don’t do that), then the university president would have the right
to attend the student society board meetings, and to debate and vote -- but they would not count toward quorum.
About the author
Christopher Girodat is currently the executive director of the Capilano Students’ Union, and has nearly a decade of experience in executive and management-level leadership roles. He’s a shameless “good governance” junkie (although it took him a while to get there), a video game nerd still starving for Breath of the Wild (still haven’t played it), a politics watcher, and someone weirdly interested in privacy law and occupational health and safety.
(Yes, I understand how odd this choice seems – but I honestly believe that executive directors out there, myself included, are thirsty
to be held more accountable, and to be given the level of responsibility and judgement that enables that accountability relationship to be crystal clear. Also, this is personal writing, and doesn’t necessarily reflect the views of the Capilano Students’ Union.)
A non-profit board is responsible for governing the association, and the executive director is responsible for managing the association’s operations (usually with the assistance of several staff). Chances are that you’re already familiar with this concept, though – and, in any case, that’s not what today’s blog post is about. This post is about how a board can ensure that it has the perspective
necessary to discharge its governance responsibility.
It’s an acknowledged principle in the “governance world” that several of the board’s members – a clear majority, preferably – should be “independent” of the association’s operations. This means that they should not have staff or staff-like responsibilities, and they should not be deeply involved in your non-profit’s day-to-day operations. This ensures that the board can provide an effective check on management, independent of your executive leadership team.
There are a ton of reasons to ensure that your non-profit board includes independent directors; in today’s post, we’re really focusing on how keeping individual board members out of day-to-day operational decision-making can improve the accountability relationship between the board and the executive director (and, by extension, to better enable the board to insist on better results).
Imagine this situation:
Your non-profit board approves the development and launch of a membership awareness campaign on a specific policy issue. Your board approves the budget, core principles, and expected outcomes for the campaign – and then delegates the day-to-day operational details of your campaign not to your executive director and staff, but to a board member.
Instead of relying on the expertise of the executive director and the staff to develop and launch the campaign, the board in this example has blurred the line between governing and managing. The executive director is not empowered to manage the details of the campaign; and, so, if the campaign is unsuccessful, or if the lead board member’s direction was ineffective, is it fair for the board to hold the executive director accountable for the campaign’s performance?
No, not really.
Imagine this situation, instead:
Your non-profit board approves the budget, principles, and expected outcomes of a membership awareness campaign – but this time, the board directs management to carry out the campaign (with the staff), and to keep the board chair informed if the board’s intervention might help to overcome any substantial threats or challenges to the campaign’s success.
The executive director is now responsible for developing and launching a campaign – for consulting the board as much as is needed (maybe even engaging with the board’s membership committee, to access the perspectives of members as stakeholders), and for abiding by any “no-go zones” or restrictions that the board might have set in advance.
Individual board members might contribute some volunteer time to the campaign, and provide feedback, but upon the executive director’s request. The board approves what
needs to be done, and the executive director decides how
it should be done – and that includes individual board members’ involvement in decision-making surrounding the campaign’s operational details.
Now, if the campaign goes well, the board can celebrate that they governed the event appropriately, and that the executive director managed the event well. If the campaign doesn’t work, then the board has a clear accountability relationship with the executive director, who presumably had all the tools and resources that they needed; and this opens a clearer governance path if the board needs to take a harder look at the executive director’s performance.
So, yes, please hold us executive directors accountable for the work that we do. But you also need to make sure that we have a level of responsibility that justifies that accountability.
About the Author
Christopher Girodat is currently the executive director of the Capilano Students’ Union, and has nearly a decade of experience in executive and management-level leadership roles. He’s a shameless “good governance” junkie (although it took him a while to get there), a video game nerd still starving for
Breath of the Wild
(darn this busy summer), a politics watcher, and someone weirdly interested in privacy law and occupational health and safety.
We see them in organizations all the time: the overzealous meeting chair; the obsessive defender of the small-print technicalities in Robert’s Rules of Order; the “meeting warrior” who uses deeply detailed knowledge of parliamentary procedure as a weapon against their colleagues (rarely for the right reasons, and often just because “these are rules, damn it!”). Worse than these, even, is the meeting chair who sits back and lets board or committee members fumble around, looking for the right wording or the right procedure to use.
If you read this blog title and thought “Ooh, is this a blog post about how to appeal the decisions of meeting chairs?!,” and felt unbridled excitement, then I’m glad you’ve joined us—because there’s a good chance that if this excites you, then you’re exactly the kind of parliamentary procedure aficionado who needs this intervention (rather than yet another misguided article on how to turn your meeting into a weird reproduction of a broken national legislature).
See, here’s the thing about parliamentary procedure in a non-profit setting: very few people around a meeting table actually need to know very much at all about parliamentary procedure. (And if you’re shocked by this statement, then please, read on; understand that this confession is coming from a recovering “meeting warrior,” and as someone whose slide deck for training folks on parliamentary procedure used to include forty-something possible motion types, including bizarre, outlandish things like motions “to consider the resolution seriatim.” Oof.)
There are only a handful of people at any given meeting who actually need to have any in-depth knowledge of your non-profit’s parliamentary authority (such as Robert’s Rules)—first, your meeting chair; and, second, if you’re lucky enough to have one, the staff member supporting your meeting group, whether that’s a professional secretary to your board, or a committee assistant. (If you are lucky enough to have staff, the bulk of the knowledge on your parliamentary authority should be on their side of things, and they should be a trusted adviser and consultant to the meeting chair—but more on that in another post.)
As meeting chair, there are a few things that you can do to help keep your meeting moving smoothly, and to ensure that the folks on your board or committee are able to follow the meeting and to participate fully. Some of these are not only best practices, but are already included in your parliamentary authority’s too-often-forgotten rules for chairing meetings.
Your members are volunteers, not parliamentary clerks
We need to remember that, for most of us in the nonprofit world, our board and committee members are not aspiring to work at the clerk’s table in the House of Commons. These folks are typically volunteers, and are here to contribute their time and their expertise to make our communities better places; we shouldn’t discourage them from participating by pushing back when resolution language might come to us in an ever-slightly imperfect form. They’re here to provide strategic leadership and direction to our organizations, not to wax poetic about Robert’s Rules.
If you can clearly discern someone’s objective in proposing an action, but there’s a bit of work needed to word the motion in the way that your organization requires (for whatever reason), then for goodness’ sake, just help them with wording. (You can rely on the assistance of your staff, too, who may be a lot faster at pulling that language together; just make sure that you or your staff check in with the person proposing the motion to make sure that it matches the intent of their proposal, before you state it back to the board or committee to make it official.)
Remember, the meeting chair is a facilitator, not the Robert’s Rules police.
Repeat yourself, all the time
This can take some getting used to, but believe me, it will make an immediate difference to your effectiveness as chair, and the effectiveness of your meetings. When a motion is moved and seconded, and the wording is ready to go, read the motion out loud to the group to open debate. This can be especially helpful on volunteer boards and committees, where the proposals coming from your members can often be pretty casual and informal (which is usually just fine).
For example:
- Member A: “I’ll move the report.”
- Member B: “Seconded.”
- Chair: “It’s been moved, and seconded, that the report of the finance committee be approved. Is there any debate?”
This makes sure that there is no confusion among your board or committee members, and it doesn’t assume any level of knowledge about the practices of your board or committee, or knowledge about where you are on the agenda. The proposal is crystal clear.
Consider repeating yourself during that debate, too. I have attended plenty of meetings where, ten or 15 minutes into a debate, someone calls out, “What’s the motion, again?” When I have the privilege of acting as meeting chair, I’ve adopted the practice of reminding folks after every three or four speakers. This also has the side-effect of keeping your meeting participants closer to the topic as the debate “evolves.” This doesn’t have to seem awkward or stunted, either:
- Chair: “The next speaker, on the motion to approve the finance committee’s report, is…”
Lastly, and perhaps more important than either repeating the motion to kick things off, or repeating the motion during the debate, is re-stating the motion just before it comes to a vote. This is especially important when things start to get complicated, such as when there are amendments being considered, or motions to refer a proposal back to a committee. You want to be sure that every person casting a vote knows exactly what the requested decision is.
If folks are awkwardly looking to their left and right when a motion comes to a vote, tentatively raising their hand to respond to the rest of the movement in the room, that’s not a failure of the board or the committee—that’s a failure on the part of the meeting chair to facilitate effectively.
Here’s an example of how to do this:
- Chair: “That’s it for the speakers list, and so we’re going to go to a vote. To be clear, we are about to vote on whether to refer the finance committee’s report back to the finance committee for revisions. So, on referring the report back to finance...all those in favour?”
As a meeting chair, if you really commit yourself to framing the start and end of each debate with a re-reading of the motion, and if you give your board or committee members occasional reminders during the discussion, you will discover very quickly that your meeting is being much more effectively facilitated, and that your volunteers are more present and aware. This also relieves your meeting participants from having to keep track of stacks of amendments and incidental motions—which is perfectly fair, because that’s your job, not theirs.
Be a proactive facilitator
As a meeting chair, you are not just there to call out the occasional motion and to take a vote, you’re also there to facilitate the work of the meeting group. A big part of meeting facilitation is ensuring that everyone has access to the information that they need to participate fully in that group’s discussion and decision-making work.
It is going to sometimes happen that one of your meeting attendees (maybe because they’re just a bit more experienced with parliamentary procedure, or because—oh, dear—they’re a “meeting warrior”) moves a motion at one of your meetings that’s a bit more “advanced.” In cases like this, if you have a reasonable belief that the folks around the table are going to be at a bit of a loss as to what happens next, then you have a job to do: slow things down and explain it to them.
For example:
- Member C: “I move an objection to the consideration of this question.”
- Member D: “Seconded!”
- Chair: “An objection to the consideration of the question has been moved and seconded. Okay, let’s hold on for a moment. For the benefit of board members, let me explain: a motion to ‘object to the consideration’ is a motion that, if approved, would stop us from considering the motion to approve the finance committee’s report. An objection is non-debatable, and so we’re going to go directly to a vote. If you are in favour of stopping the finance committee’s report from being considered, vote ‘yes’; if you oppose, the objection, and would like the chance to consider the finance committee’s report, vote ‘no.’ Okay, we’re voting on whether the objection is sustained: all those in favour?”
If a motion reaches a result out of procedural trickery, that differs from the decision that would have been made had board or committee members fully understood what was happening, then that is a failure in governance and meeting facilitation. It’s even more important that you fully understand what’s happening—if someone shows up and starts grandstanding using “the rules,” feel free to have the group stand by while you consult staff and other resources for answers. Never allow someone to overwhelm the meeting chair, or the group, using arcane procedures.
Conclusion
Following the three tips above can go a long way to making your meetings more accessible and approachable for your meeting participants. These tips allow meeting attendees, with next to no knowledge of parliamentary procedure, to walk into a meeting with nearly no introduction to the rules, without getting left behind. (I should note, of course, that I still encourage an effective onboarding process for new board and committee members.)
With the guidance of an effective meeting chair, you can level the playing field between some of your parliamentary authority’s “advanced users” (both the well-intentioned ones, and those who think Robert’s Rules is nothing more than a handy smoke grenade to toss out in the middle of a contentious meeting) and the rest of your meeting attendees. (And by “the rest of your meeting attendees,” I mean “normal, reasonable people.”)
About the Author
Christopher Girodat is currently the executive director of the Capilano Students’ Union, and has nearly a decade of experience in executive and management-level leadership roles. He’s a shameless “good governance” junkie (although it took him a while to get there), a video game nerd still starving for Breath of the Wild (darn this busy summer), a politics watcher, and someone weirdly interested in privacy law and occupational health and safety.
