Not all meetings are created equal – nor should they be treated that way. The less tense the mood, the more productive it will be: encouraging everyone to open up and be themselves is a guaranteed way to increase their effectiveness.
Below are some of the more innovative meeting techniques clients use that keeps their teams feeling empowered and inspired.
1. Starting and Ending With a Joke
Start meetings with an ice breaker – usually a funny quote or anecdote. To end, a team member shares a particularly humorous sales or operations story from the week prior. This builds camaraderie and helps to ensure the meeting in the middle remains as it should: casual, effective and engaging
2. Doing a Breathing Meditation
Do a five-minute breathing meditation before starting meetings. This way everyone has a calm, clear mind ready to focus.
3. Set a time bomb
Have an alarm with the maximum time the meeting should run. Once the alarm goes off, the meeting is done. No excuses. This keeps everyone focused and on-task.
4. Describing Yourselves in One Word
Begin meetings by describing yourselves in just one word. This is a quick and silly exercise that sets the pace for the rest of the meeting but importantly gets everyone involved from the start.
5. Including Meeting Trivia
During staff meetings randomly quiz the team on something already discussed or reported during the meeting, or even just fun company trivia eg. “What’s the name of Tim’s dog?”. The first person to answer correctly gets a gift card. You would be surprised how well people stay engaged when a £10 iTunes gift card is at stake
6. Encouraging Note Taking
Ensure pens and paper are at hand so that people feel compelled to take notes. This practice both ensures better documentation and thus improve outcomes as well as also helping improve concentration by taking attention away from mobile phones and other possible distractions.
7. Moving the Meeting To A Different Location
As we approach the summer there may be some sunny days where it’s just too distracting to be in a meeting room. No one wants to be in there. With great weather look to hold the meeting outside. Everyone likes some fresh air!
