Bring the life back to your weekly meetings.
There is a great difference between a great meeting and a boring one. Great meetings produce viable results, make everyone feel energized and inspired to take the desired action, and give everyone a warm feeling of accomplishment. On the other hand, a boring meeting can be a total waste of everyone’s time.?
If your team meetings fall into the first category, then you are definitely on your way?to creating a high-performance environment in the workplace. However, if your weekly meetings have become nothing more but a boring routine, then you need some help to bring it back to life. How do you do it? Here are some simple yet effective tips to stir things up.
Start with a plan. Determine what you want to accomplish in your weekly meetings, prepare an agenda and send it out in advance to give your team members time to prepare for the meeting. Gather input for the agenda to get your team members more involved in the undertaking.
Engage people in the conversation. Encourage your team members to speak their minds and challenge others when they disagree. This will stimulate productive conflict among the members of the group and keep their creative juices flowing. However, you also need to lay some ground rules to make sure they do things respectfully. In addition, you should also consider doing round robins to give everyone the chance to talk.
Use training session tools. Games, icebreakers, and small group discussions are just as effective in keeping people engaged in the conversation, so feel free to use them during your weekly meetings to promote a more lively and engaged atmosphere.
Use visuals. A combination of visual aids such as photos, videos, handouts and flip charts can help you accomplish your goals. Don’t limit yourself to PowerPoint presentations if you don’t want to bore your team members.?
Put toys and treats to good use. Allow people to play with toys during the meeting. Just make sure that these don’t provide enough distraction to take your team members’ attention away from the meeting. Little tubs of PlayDoh, crayons, sponge balls and other toys that you can fiddle and doodle with are ideal for this purpose. You should also consider putting some treats on the table. Some bagels, pastries and fruits would do just fine in keeping your team members’ creative juices flowing. ??
There are a lot of things that you can do to keep your weekly team meetings lively and productive so start thinking outside the box to come up with even more exciting ideas.?
