How to Make Meetings Less Boring So You Get More Out of Them
Of course, the goal shouldn’t be to make meetings less boring but to make them more useful and productive. Yet, the vast number of articles and videos about how to run an effective meeting don’t seem to be leading to more effective meetings.
If you struggle to stay awake at meetings, seek ways to participate more. Offering input will help your brain stay engaged. Ask questions, or at least write them down. Another suggestion is to have the “owner” of each topic—the person responsible for making something happen—run the part of the meeting when that topic is being covered. By having successive people running the meeting, you won’t have to listen to any one person endlessly. And if you own one of the topics, you can make sure that at least your segment isn’t boring.
Stand-up meetings can certainly help; people tend to dither less and get to the point faster when they’re upright. Or, as Nilofer Merchant compellingly describes in this TED talk, try a walking meeting. After all, we already spend an unhealthy amount of time sitting.
One good way to get things started is to begin each meeting with good-news stories from your team. You also can try spending a few minutes brainstorming solutions for current or pressing problems. Line the walls of the meeting room with cards displaying different problems for team members to solve, posed as "How can we…" questions (such as “How can we improve communication?”). Designate a segment in which everyone roams around the room, writing ideas on sticky notes and affixing them to the problems to which they apply.
But if serious approaches don’t help, try this to keep yourself entertained: You and a buddy (otherwise known as an accomplice) select some business clichés—such as “picking the low-hanging fruit”—and see who can be the first to use each cliché during the meeting. The person who uses the most wins, with bonus points awarded if you can get someone else in the meeting to say the cliché. The rules are up to you. The will definitely keep you awake (although not necessarily focused on the meeting).
And of course, there’s always doodling to help you focus. At a presentation I made to a project team, one fellow doodled on my handout. My handout, and he was doodling on it! Yet he remained alert throughout, and when I looked at his renderings afterward (he’d left the handout behind), I was so impressed by his artistic sketches that I saved it. In fact, for some of my presentations thereafter, I brought sheets of brightly colored paper with “Doodle Here” at the top of each. People given permission to doodle are more likely to stay awake. (Usually.)
