Meetings Don’t Have To Be Boring

  • By Jessica Elmore
  • •
  • 27 Jan, 2017
  • •
Meetings are a necessary part of business life, but they don’t have to fit the boring, let’s-get-this-over-with stereotype that we all know too well. If you want your meeting attendees to get the most from their time together, the key is creativity.  If you incorporate the following principles into your meeting planning process, you are sure to get positive feedback.

Sweat the small stuff.

Before getting creative, make sure the basics are covered. You want your meeting attendees free to focus on their work, not on the meeting details.  Make sure there are enough drinks, pens, notepads and tissues. Are all the technical aspects covered? Is there a backup bulb for the projector? Hard candy for the restless? Ice? Whether in your in-house conference room or a downtown hotel, have you checked to make sure none of the chairs are broken? The blinds are adjustable? By making sure your meeting isn’t memorable for the wrong reasons, you are improving your team’s performance and your organization’s bottom line.

Take it Easy

It doesn’t take a Golden Globes budget to impress your attendees.  It takes creativity and attention.  Humor is a great way to connect people, and it can be as simple as selecting a cartoon (run it by your host to validate its appropriateness) and printing it off to have at each seat.  Use cybertools like SurveyMonkey to intersperse brief teambuilding exercises between agenda items, or use text-based voting to determine which changes to make to a report. Add 5 minutes of stretching every hour, or have fresh fruit salad delivered to each seat during a break.

Tap the Talent.

One key to a memorable meeting is breaking down the barriers that typically keep people from feeling comfortable and relaxed enough to work intensively together.  Don’t bore your hard-working attendees with the same tired, artificial-feeling games. Work behind the scenes to get your host and other key participants to think outside the box when it comes to icebreaking…a silly skit or a song

When you try out these ideas, your meetings will start to pop.  Effective meeting planning requires a willingness to explore new alternatives, to connect people across teams, departments and organizations.  Good meetings mean great productivity; it’s time to make yours shine. Contact elm Planning today to help facilitate all your meeting planning needs.

by the leaders of a group can break the ice immediately and draw others in the group to feel more engaged.

When you try out these ideas, your meetings will start to pop.  Effective meeting planning requires a willingness to explore new alternatives, to connect people across teams, departments and organizations.  Good meetings mean great productivity; it’s time to make yours shine. Contact elm Planning today to help facilitate all your meeting planning needs.

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