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Breathe Life into Your Meetings
 Business meetings are notorious for being, well, boring. Many people find lecture-style presentations or roundtable discussions painfully dull. With a reputation like this, it's no wonder employees everywhere dread endless meetings, which hurts both communication and productivity. What's even worse is when people don't know each other and they find themselves squirming instead of chiming in with ideas and opinions.
Get 'em in the game
When everyone's on the bleachers and no one's on the field, it's time for drastic action. Ice-breakers — games, exercises and other activities — get the creative juices flowing and encourage give and take. Try these activities and watch your meetings come to life.
- Innovative meet and greet. Instead of the usual round-robin of everyone saying their name, ask each person to share three little-known facts about themselves. Or, you can have attendees talk about their worst job or share a funny or embarrassing job-related story. As the meeting leader, make sure you're willing to tell your tale first to set the stage.
- Brainstorming. Free-association exercises, quizzes or brain teasers encourage people to think in new ways. Once they've jumped out of the rut of their usual line of thinking, they're more likely to share new ideas.
- Team building. Put together small-group activities that help employees work together and come up with ideas. These might include breakout talks, team presentations or other ways to get people talking in small groups.
Plan carefully
Activities that haven't been well thought out just make people dread meetings even more. At the very least, they make people feel uncomfortable and they can hurt productivity. So, as you plan, make sure to take into consideration:
- Size. Think about what activities you'd like to have and the number of people in your meeting. Does the activity make sense? It might help to divide everyone into smaller groups.
- Dynamics. Some people simply aren't comfortable stretching themselves too much. While you might be able to go wild with a group of sales people, engineers definitely have different preferences. Take personalities into account, and avoid activities that may be outside someone's comfort zones.
- Purpose. There needs to be a tie-in between the activity and what you're trying to accomplish with your meeting. For example, if you want to come up with new ideas for a tagline, then choose a brainstorming game.
- Prepare. Put together whatever materials you'll need before your meeting starts and keep an eye on the clock. You don't want your ice-breaker or activity to run so long that you don't have time to take care of the business at hand.
With the right ice-breakers, you can make your meetings more exciting, productive and successful. Who knows…your employees might even look forward to the next one! |
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