How to run efficient meetings with parliamentary rules

How to run efficient meetings with parliamentary rules

Jill Holtz: Hi everyone, welcome to the Leading with Purpose podcast where we share practical advice to help mission-driven organisations strengthen governance and lead with confidence. I'm your host, Jill Holtz from Diligent. Today I am joined by Sarah Merkel from Civility.

Sarah is a well-known attorney and certified professional parliamentarian who has worked for nearly 25 years with organisations nationwide, helping them use parliamentary procedure to run fair, efficient and orderly business meetings. She shares practical, strategic tips about organisational governance with dozens of boards who appreciate her ability to make complex rules easy to understand. Sarah, welcome to Leading with Purpose.

We're so glad you're here today to help demystify parliamentary procedure and to show how rules can actually make meetings smoother, not more complicated.

Sarah Merkle: Thank you, Jill. It's wonderful to be here. Thank you for having me.

Jill Holtz: So why don't we kick off with this. For listeners who might be new to this, how do you define parliamentary procedure in simple terms and what is it trying to achieve in a meeting?

Sarah Merkle: A great place to start. Parliamentary procedure is a tool for efficiency and fairness in business meetings. It's not something that you probably would want to use around your family dinner table.

It has a specific context, business meetings. It also is not a moral code, it's just a tool. It's a tool for efficiency and fairness, a way that we honour the rights of each individual person there, the rights of the majority to decide for the group, the rights of the minority to have their voice heard.

Jill Holtz: Why do you think parliamentary rules are important for mission-driven boards and public bodies today? Why does that matter for them?

Sarah Merkle: We live in a world where trust is really low, sensitivity to abuse of power is high and it makes the need for process-oriented rules more necessary. We need something to protect the process of making a decision. When you think about making a decision for yourself, if you're sitting on the couch watching Netflix and you want to have a certain kind of ice cream, you can make all of those decisions for yourself.

What show to watch, when to eat the ice cream, how much to eat, what flavour to eat. But when we're in a group, so take your family and now you want to have a Friday movie night, you have to have a process for making that decision now that you're in a group. Who's going to decide, where are you going to go, what movie are you going to see, what kind of ice cream are you going to have and when are you going to have it?

And your family probably has unsaid rules, unwritten rules for making those decisions such as one person has veto power, one person doesn't get to decide because they decided last time. And when we go to a more formal context, like a business meeting, we also have to have rules for how that group is going to get from A to B. And so some people think that parliamentary procedure is outdated and it, you know, Robert's Rules is turning 150 years old this year.

So I get that some folks think it's archaic, but my question would be, what rules then are you going to use instead? And the important thing is that you figure out some set of rules to use. It isn't important that you use Robert's Rules necessarily, but it is important that you figure out some set of rules to use and those rules should protect the rights of each individual person, protect the rights of the minority and honour the decisions of the majority of the group.

Jill Holtz: So what I'm hearing from you is otherwise it could potentially be a free-for-all and what you're doing is you're saying we're going to abide by this set of rules, whether it's Robert's Rules or not. And that's actually going to make the meeting easier to run, less free-for-all and help to build that trust that you said has been kind of degrading over time because people feel there is a due process in place.

Sarah Merkle: That's right. Most people can live with a decision they don't like if they feel like the process was fair.

It's been the process was lopsided in some way that they get real wound up and understandably so. And so if you really want to accomplish your mission as a board, the mission of the organisation, then protecting the process is one of the best ways that you can do that to avoid sort of dictatorial power or a situation where the minority never is heard because they're the minority. Yeah, I think that.

Jill Holtz: So you mentioned Robert's Rules being 150 years old. Maybe there's a kind of a misconception that this is old and archaic. What are the biggest misconceptions you encounter about parliamentary procedure nowadays?

Sarah Merkle: I have so much empathy and sympathy for the view that this is an archaic set of rules, that it's too formal, that it slows us down. I get that. The reason that most people who think that think that is because they have had an experience with a person or group of people who just threw their meeting kind of into chaos because of how they used parliamentary procedure.

Either those folks are using it in an abusive way, so they're taking the knowledge that they have and the knowledge that others don't, and they're using parliamentary procedure to railroad their idea, or they're using it in a way that just isn't helpful. It's just like a distraction. Again, it's a tool.

It's not a moral code. It's for efficiency and fairness. So whatever knowledge base you have about parliamentary procedure, you should always be putting that through the lens in the context of, is how I am using this benefiting both efficiency and fairness?

Has to be both. Yeah. I also am a huge proponent of customizing the rules for your organization.

Rarely in life do we get to take any template and just use it universally, and you shouldn't do that with parliamentary procedure or Robert's rules either. You should always be looking for ways to customize it to suit the needs of your group.

Jill Holtz: And then I think that's really interesting because every mission-driven organization is different. They have different stakeholders. They have different mission goals that they're trying to meet.

So doing that kind of step of, okay, what do we need to put in place to tailor to our situation is really important, and will also help build that trust that we talked about. When you look at an agenda, what are the signs to you that it's been designed with both good parliamentary process and efficiency in mind?

Sarah Merkle: I think it's human nature to take the agenda that you had for the last meeting and save it as a new document and change the date at the top. That can be okay. It probably isn't best practice.

An agenda that's well designed is an agenda that has taken into account the needs of this particular group on this particular day. How long has it been since you met? A quarter?

A month? A week? How did that last meeting go?

What time of day is this meeting? Is it at 7 30 p.m.? Great. People are not going to want to be there for five hours.

Yeah. So it has taken that into account, and then it's taken into account the mission of the organization and the strategic plan and where you're at in that strategic plan. And so what do we really need to be using this meeting to do?

What do we absolutely need to accomplish? I like to ask my clients, what decisions do you absolutely need made before you leave the room for this meeting? Okay, great.

Then how are you strategically organizing your agenda to make sure those decisions actually get made and get made in the best way possible? Maybe that means putting them towards the top. Maybe it means putting a certain decision after a certain report has been made.

But a well-crafted agenda is one that is crafted plenty of time in advance for the staff to work together with the key leaders of the board to take a step back and get both a granular view and a high-level view and say, what are we actually trying to do here? Not just check a box, but gets this organization forward-moving, forward-thinking along the trajectory of the strategic plan.

Jill Holtz: I love that. I think so it's really about keeping your strategic plan and goals and what you're trying to achieve front and foremost, making sure what are the decisions we absolutely have to try and make at this meeting? And then, as you said, putting them at the top of the agenda, not at the bottom of the agenda, because those are the important things.

We can come to the less important things if we have time. So it's about kind of, and is allocation of time then for each agenda item important for making sure that that has enough time to be covered?

Sarah Merkle: It is. It's very important because you'll have some, you will always have some individuals who are oriented to take less time than they should. And you'll always have individuals who are oriented to take more time and more space than they should.

And so as you're preparing the agenda, again, in enough time in advance, you can have those conversations. I could say to you, Jill, you're leading a very important committee and we want to give you 30 minutes on the agenda. Well, you might think, I can't talk for 30 minutes and you need plenty of time to prepare for that.

Or I might be able to say, Jill, you're leading a very important committee, but we only have 10 minutes for you. And so it preps you in advance. Again, it's very important that it seems, filling out an agenda, I think can seem like such a check the box sort of task, but you can really set the tone of a meeting and how a meeting is ultimately going to go by the way you craft an That's so interesting.

Jill Holtz: What does good participation look like for individual board members under these rules? What should people be looking to do and then looking to avoid doing?

Sarah Merkle: A rockstar board member is a board member who is prepared, who is both engaged and engaging. Most people do not get on a board because they are good at being on boards.

That's not something that we have as a line item on our resume. People are on boards because they're very good at what they do in their daily life, their day job. So often folks come to a board meeting with a posture of competence because they're very competent at what they do in their day job.

And it takes some humility to really participate on a board in a way that's productive for that board. So I like to encourage people to be active listeners and to listen for what you don't know. And don't assume that you know what that person is going to say and where they're going to land.

Also be an engaging speaker. In my line of work, I have sat in at least a thousand business meetings. And some of the listeners are probably thinking, kill me now.

But I get to observe really the psychology of how a meeting works and the psychology of how people behave in a meeting. And it just amazes me how often individuals will just say things and they'll talk for three or four minutes and you're not exactly sure what the point is. So if you want to accomplish something in a business meeting as an individual, then keep your remarks to two minutes or less.

If you can't do that, you probably don't know exactly what you want to say.

Jill Holtz: Yeah.

Sarah Merkle: And tell the group what you want them to do. So say, I urge you to vote in favor of this. I urge you to vote against this.

And here's why. And be organized. Use parliamentary procedure for what it was meant for.

Efficiency and fairness. If you don't know it well, you don't have to learn it all. Learn the basics.

I have some resources on my website that are very much designed for a competent lay person to learn the basics and to be able and to engage well. But I think the drawback that I see most often today in business meetings is individuals do not come prepared to be active, engaged participants. They're distracted and they have decided how they want something to go and they just stop engaging.

Jill Holtz: That's really interesting. And I think having seen thousands of meetings, you're really distilling it down well that preparation is key. Active listening is key.

If you can't say it in a short and sweet couple of minutes. But also, as you said, asking, they ask, you know, this is what I think we should do. This is what I think we should vote and why.

Obviously at Diligent, we sell technology for mission driven organizations. We're passionate about it. It helps boards be better at governance.

Can I ask you how you've seen technology with features such as digital agenda, secure voting, online minute taking, etc. How does that support clearer, more efficient meetings and practice?

Sarah Merkle: I love the board portal softwares that are out there. I think they have done so much to provide a secure way to meet and to distribute materials for meetings. So gone are the days where we're just distributing materials to everyone's email address and hoping for the best.

We can upload it to a secure portal and then you can develop an agenda in that portal. And like I said, as you're describing this agenda or as you're considering this agenda, then you can move things around. And all the reports and materials that people need for that agenda item are right there and they can access it during the meeting.

But also on the staff side, you have the ability to move it around and to organize it in a way that makes sense. I think the secure voting piece is great as long as folks don't use it to vote outside of a meeting unless they have, of course, followed the law, legal requirements for doing that. And as long as they don't require folks to vote in sort of a roll call way, like record their personal vote if they have decided that they don't want to do that.

But I think the software gives you flexibility to do those sorts of, it gives you options in that way. And I think that's really great.

Jill Holtz: And I like that you're back to the point about coming better prepared, that if you've been sent through a secure portal, a very well organized agenda, you've got all the attachments, you can see the relevant history as well. And you can see what past decisions were made. And that all helps board members, particularly who are busy, you know, they're doing this as well as their full-time jobs, come better prepared.

Can I ask you, Sarah, next, which tools within parliamentary procedure do you find are most useful for de-escalating conflict and keeping things on track? Because that's often a real issue with meetings, keeping them on track. You know, we mentioned people sort of having their own agendas or whatever.

What are things that can be used to help de-escalate that conflict?

Sarah Merkle: It really starts with the chair, the person leading the meeting, the person in charge of guiding that group through the meeting. And so if you're chairing a board, any kind of board, then job number one for you is to bring a posture that is impartial, that is internally regulated, that is prepared. Very early in my career, I worked with a presiding officer who I think is probably the best presiding officer I have ever worked with.

And the reason I say that is because he had this sort of posture, he had this humility about him and this internal regulation about him. And there was a man, this is a very large group of folks, it was not a board. And there was a man in that group who just couldn't read the room.

He had very good questions, but he always asked them at inopportune times. And the man leading the meeting never showed a shred of annoyance. And what that allowed is the group to borrow that man's internal regulation and respect for each and every member.

And it said to everyone in the group, it doesn't matter what kind of question you ask and when you ask it or what you say, you're going to get the same kind measured response from the chair. And so a group can borrow that from the chair. And that's why I say it is important for the person leading the meeting to always have that sort of posture.

If you can come with that sort of posture, then you will recognize each individual impartially. And the meeting, even if it's tense, even if there are conflicting opinions, the meeting will proceed along at a steady cadence and a steady pace. So that's point number one.

Then you can layer on top of that a set of debate rules. Again, this is where Robert's Rules of Order or any of the other parliamentary authorities may not serve your group well. You need to ask yourself, what does our group need to structure the debate?

So the questions would be, how often can someone talk? Can they talk a second time before anyone else has spoken? How long can they talk at a time?

Asking yourself those sorts of questions and then setting some kind of rules of behavior, rules of the day, whatever you want to call them, special rules that layer into whatever parliamentary authority you use or do not use, then now everyone is following the same structure, no matter how quote important they are in the room or unimportant. And the presiding officer or the chair enforces those rules with his or her posture. And now we have a structure.

So it operates along a spectrum. You may have a board that's very collegial and they don't need real strict rules. But all of a sudden they get to an issue that's very tense, that's very contentious.

Well, now you reach into your bag of tools and you pull out the stricter structure and you work within that. Or you may have a board that is all of a sudden very contentious or has always been contentious. So they need those rules all of the time.

It operates along a spectrum. It's not a one-size-fits-all. Those are the types of things that parliamentary procedure can offer to help de-escalate conflict.

People think that you can de-escalate conflict by using points of order and appeal and previous questions from all these intricate motions. And you can definitely use those strategically to accomplish certain ends. They don't necessarily de-escalate conflict.

Jill Holtz: Yeah, I understand. So a lot of it comes from setting the tone by the board chair. Yes.

Making sure that everyone knows that these are the rules that we're going to be using. So that, as you said earlier, everybody gets a fair chance to speak within those boundaries and that the neutrality comes from the rules being there as well, doesn't it? That people feel that even if they never agree with the final decision, they did have an opportunity to speak at the meeting, for example.

Sarah Merkle: Yes, they weren't shut down. I hope anyone listening does not think I think this is easy. No one is actually neutral.

We're all people. But when you when you take on the role of chairing a meeting, then you're putting on a hat of professional neutrality.

Jill Holtz: Yeah.

Sarah Merkle: And so you have to work at that. It's okay that you do, but it is possible.

Jill Holtz: Yeah, that's great advice. Just to ask you quickly, then, for maybe smaller or more informal boards, how can they right-size parliamentary rules so they get the benefits without maybe feeling that that's an overly rigid situation?

Sarah Merkle: Just like I talked about a spectrum of sort of how collegial your board is or how contentious a specific issue is, the rules also operate along a spectrum of size. If we get a thousand people together, we need robust rules because getting a thousand people to decide anything is a lot, right? But when we only have 12 people, we don't want to have the same rules that we would have for hundreds or thousands.

That's very rigid. And so the threshold of a board around 12 people in our field, in parliamentary procedure, the threshold for what is considered small.

Jill Holtz: Okay.

Sarah Merkle: But there's some flexibility there with everything. Number one, in a board that's smaller, you probably want the chair to be able to participate in the discussion. Usually the chair would not because they're trying to maintain that posture of neutrality and they don't want to show their cards.

But in a small board, then you should allow the chair to that and allow the chair to vote. And even if it's not a tie or to break a tie or a secret, like we would in a larger group, the chair, of course, should always use that power or the fact that that's allowed in a very judicious way. They need to consider whether it's actually going to help the situation for them to debate.

So allowing the chair to debate, structuring debate limits to be very specific to the needs of the group. When you only have a few people, you know them well. So you know their tendencies.

In a small group, getting a second is probably not as necessary. In a small group, allowing the group to tease an idea through before a motion is made. So usually if we think about the life cycle of motion, debate happens after a motion is made and a second is made.

But in a small group, you can accomplish a lot more efficiently depending on how you structure the discussion time by perhaps allowing like an informal discussion to occur. And then the group kind of coalesces around an idea and then you can form the motion. So you have to put some structure on it, of course, in order for it to be both efficient and fair.

But those are some rules that can help a small board use parliamentary procedure a little bit differently.

Jill Holtz: That's great, Sarah. And at Diligent, we do hear from boards that having clear agendas, secure online voting, good minutes are helping them keep meetings both compliant and efficient and that technology does help support some of the processes you've just described. So I'm conscious of time. You're a very busy lady. So I'd like to ask you as a final wrap-up question, if you could give boards just one piece of advice to make their meetings more efficient, fair and productive using parliamentary rules, what would that be, Sarah?

Sarah Merkle: Take some time to think about creating a process that serves your mission. No one goes to board meetings and business meetings because that's what they want to do with their life. They go because they're passionate about the mission.

So take some time to think about how you're using their time to serve that mission really well. If people can come to a meeting and feel like their time is being used really well, then what happens is they get reinvigorated in the mission and become even more invested. And so taking a step back, asking how you're using the meeting time well, and then using parliamentary procedure just to serve those interests and to serve the mission interests is actually what it's for.

It's not an end to itself. I

Jill Holtz: I love that. Sarah, thank you so much for joining me today and for making parliamentary rules feel really practical and approachable. I think that our listeners will definitely take a lot from your advice and ideas they can use in their very next meeting.

So and we'll include some links to your website and some of the resources you mentioned in today's show notes as well so that listeners can continue learning after the episode as well. So thank you, Sarah. Thank you.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Leading with Purpose. I hope today's conversation with Sarah gave you a fresh perspective on parliamentary procedure, not as a set of rigid, outdated rules, but as a practical tool for protecting fairness, improving efficiency, and helping your board use their time in service of the mission. As Sarah reminded us, effective meetings don't happen by accident.

They're the result of thoughtful agendas, clear expectations, strong facilitation, and processes that help everyone feel heard even when decisions are difficult. Investing in better meeting practices doesn't just lead to smoother discussions. It builds trust, strengthens governance, and helps board members stay energized and engaged in the work that matters most.

You can find links to Sarah's website and other resources in the show notes. And if you're looking for more practical guidance to support strong mission-driven governance, visit www.dilligent.com forward slash leading with purpose. You'll find resources there to help you and your board lead with confidence.

And can I ask a favor? If you enjoyed this episode, please consider rating and reviewing the podcast wherever you're listening. It really does help others find the show.

Thanks again for tuning in, and I look forward to bringing you more practical conversations to support purpose-driven governance on the next episode of Leading with Purpose.