6 WAYS TO SPICE UP YOUR MEETINGS

Whether you desire to increase collaboration, grow connection, or inspire unique and productive conversations within your next standard monotonous meeting, there are ways organizations world-wide are spicing up their meetings. And we have a thing or two we can learn from them!

1. Odd Meeting Times

One of my favorite ways to casually spice up my monotonous meetings during the week is by scheduling meetings for odd times. Psychology tells us that numbers that are even tend to be more “homey” and “friendly”, whereas odd numbers tend to draw “focus”, highlights “importance”, and dictates “attention”. [1] Even (no pun intended) the general use of odd number sequences such as 8:48 or 11:11 tigger the same effect as simple odd numbers.

In my youth ministry, I utilize 6:36pm as one of our gathering times for our more outreach-focused gathering times. There’s nothing overtly “magical” about this number, but psychologists tell us that students and their families are 20% more likely to consider and process that time because the oddity of it. It is literally more thought-provoking!

2. Intentional Connection Before Content

If you want quality out of your management style and in your team’s overall performance, you have to consider the three P’s: People, Process, Product. Often, leaders focus on the latter two and shrug past the former. But if you want healthy process and product, you need healthy people.

A great way to add to your culture of building healthy people and teams is through intentional connection. At the top of your meeting, mark out the first few minutes to check in on your team, ask probing questions that engages your people and moves them out of their comfort zones. If a larger team, consider having people hold a number in the air with their hands from 1-10, with 10 being the best. The team member(s) with the few lowest numbers would be the ones intentionally engaged with.

3. High Level Issues First

When we prioritize addressing the most important issues first, the less important issues do not carry the same amount of weight. We tend to approach meetings from the opposite end. Like testing the water, we dip a toe, then step in with a foot, we get knee deep, and then if time still allows, we get fully immersed.

Far too many meetings over-prioritize the less important issues first leaving little room for the important issues to be engaged with. By diving right in (cannonball anyone?) you honor the big stuff, protect your time, and prioritize appropriately (I use tools like Asana to help).

4. Q&A SESH

Great leaders are great listeners. It’s easier to make plans and decisions than it is to take time to stop and truly listen. If you want to thrive in your leadership and decision-making, consider creating space in your next meeting that is driven more Q&A style.

This meeting session type, done openly and purposefully can drive engagement with your team and address issues and questions that may go unheard without. Sometimes you’ll get out in the open what you cannot get in a one-on-one or with limited voices. People often play off one another’s ideas or recall details or other questions they had, but didn’t remember until someone said something that triggered it.

When hosting this type of meeting and no one has a question, one of my favorite things to do is sit and stare until there is one. I want to create the space for questions to be presented in a safe space and I expect that my team utilizes that time to do so.

5. Establish A New Process

Processes are central to any effective system. At their core, processes identifies the steps that leaders and their teams take to reach a desired end result or solution. If there is no process, team members will work out of their own process and will begin to reach their interpreted destination – whether or not it is the meeting or organizations destination desire or not. They want a solution. And they’ll do what is necessary to reach it.

Here’s a simple meeting process framework to consider:

First 10 Minutes: Identify the Problem. Get everything on the table relating to the thing that needs to be addressed.
Next 10-15 Minutes: Hash it out.
Last 10-15 Minutes: Agree on a Solution.

Note: Some issues or topics require more time and intentional conversation than is allocated in the process listed above. However, this framework still works – just expand the time allotted. In his book Death By Meeting, Patrick Lencioni talks about the ADHOC Topical Meeting designed to be strategic in conversation, narrowed on topic, involves analysis and brainstorming, anticipates conflict, and ultimately aims for a decision. A meeting like this can anticipate going anywhere from 2-4 hours as needed.

6. Assign Actionables & Clarify Next Steps

Every meeting needs two things: necessity and an objective. If it can be communicated via email or touched on via a video that team members can watch later, it’s probably not necessary. But if it can’t and meeting is necessary, then be clear about what you want to see as a result of this meeting. Author Steven Covey reminds us to “Begin with the end in mind”.

So does the end in mind look like? First, meeting attendees leave better than before they arrived. Second, it involves actionables and next steps. Without plans, people fail. Assigning actionable tasks for team members and clarifying what expectations are for their next steps allows your team to succeed and it validates the necessity and objective to begin with.

One of my favorite tools to assign actionables and clarify next steps is Asana. For my most action-packed meetings, I have an Asana project built out with four core section headers including Announcements, WOWs & WINs, Topics/Issues, and Follow Up. When that meeting takes place, I then open that particular project and add to the list or check stuff off as it happens. By the end of the meeting, anything requiring follow up is already assigned to those responsible and next steps are able to take place.

So I’m curious… Is there a meeting flavor you’re willing to try this week? Drop it in the comments below or share it with me in an email at hello@joshgirgenti.com!

REFERENCES

[1] Atishay Goyal. March 2018. https://uxdesign.cc/odd-vs-even-number-psychology-6307047bf5de