Although they are essential to enable collaborative work to take place, meetings are widely considered one of the most mundane and boring business necessities. Even some of the world’s top entrepreneurs, such as Elon Musk, try to avoid them as much as possible. But meetings don’t have to be this way.
There are plenty of ways to make meetings more memorable and inspiring while still transmitting essential information, and putting in the effort to make them so confers many advantages. For example, employees leave good meetings more engaged, productive, and motivated. Over time, their job satisfaction increases too.
Now that you know the power of meetings, what can you do to improve yours? This article shares some of the best strategies for creating meetings that your employees will enjoy and remember.
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Get out of the office
The location of a meeting can have a large effect on the frame of mind of the attendees. But no matter how well-designed your office conference room was when it was first installed, over the years your employees will doubtless have become numb to it, or even sick of the sight of it. This doesn’t mean you should never use it again, but change things up from time to time.
You could even hold really important meetings in other countries. In fact, there is a whole segment of the tourism and hospitality industry now dedicated to this. From wowing investors with a luxury hotel meeting room in Singapore to giving an amazing presentation in a gallery space at the British museum, you can choose from venues all around the globe. Some governments offer support and assistance to foreign businesses hosting events in their country.
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Set the mood
Location is just one aspect that helps put meeting attendees in the right frame of mind. There are lots of things you can do to help set the mood of your meeting and making time for them is more likely to help your presentations and activities get the reception they deserve than diving straight into them.
One technique which has been shown to effectively elevate the mood in meetings is to ask all the attendees to share something they’ve personally achieved since the last meeting. Focusing on something positive is a proven mood booster, and research shows that those in a good mood are more capable of creative problem-solving.
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Encourage everyone to contribute
People are more likely to remember information from a meeting when they themselves contribute. The trouble is, if you leave attendees to their own devices then the loudest employees tend to dominate. Instead, give everyone a limited amount of time to speak and share their views. Let them know that you will do this beforehand, then they will be better prepared for the meeting too.
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Involve some exercise
If you’re holding a long meeting, keep attendees engaged and show that you’re looking out for their health by having them move around. Even a standing-sitting approach to voting on decisions can help keep people more engaged.
Conclusion
Adopting some of the above strategies in your next meeting will help your attendees come away not only well-informed, but impressed, engaged, and inspired too. They’ll even be looking forward to the next one.
