9 Dynamic Methods to Make Your Meetings More Fun and Useful
Photo by Dylan Gillis on Unsplash
It’s time to plan your next meeting, but last week, you heard the groans of your staff when you announced it. Ok, it wasn’t out loud, but it was easy to read their facial expressions. They’re bored, and the way the meetings have been going isn’t helping. It’s hard to blame them, though. No one wants to sit through hours of the same thing every week or every month.
Maybe it’s time to shake things up a bit. One of the things we need to regularly add to our meetings is variety. Changing up our methods opens up new ways of thinking, making our interactions more meaningful, engaging, and ultimately, more helpful.
So let's get past our go-to meeting methods of open discussion, brainstorming, or listing pros and cons, and let’s add some new life to our meetings.
We’ll look at three common meeting outcomes (Sharing Information, Advancing the Thinking, and Building Community) and see what we can do to add some spice to your meetings.
Desired Outcome: Sharing Information
Stating the desired outcome of a meeting (or portion of a meeting) is always beneficial and helps the participants know what kind of interaction is needed. If everyone knows that the point of this part of the meeting is sharing information (rather than making a decision, for example), they will probably limit themselves to clarifying questions.
When the goal is to share information, people most often use oral presentations. Unfortunately, presentations and reports drive people to be “polished.” It is more helpful to create an atmosphere of learning or draft thinking because it creates more space for growth and development.
Here are some alternatives:
Not Sharing: Odd first suggestion, I know. But the objective of sharing information can often be achieved outside of a meeting, so the meeting space is saved for topics that require collective involvement.
Pre-Recorded Video: Asking presenters to do a time-limited video recording keeps the presenter from sharing beyond what’s needed, which often happens when there is a room full of faces looking back at them as they verbally present.
In my regular training events, I’ve started sharing pre-recorded videos for short teaching sections, because I tend to share more succinctly and clearly when I use that method. Consider giving a time limit, asking people to do the video as a selfie from their phone or computer, and asking for no more than two tries. This may help them present in an unpolished way that improves the group's ability to interact and grow. As a leader, it can help to be the first to do this to set the precedent for the unpolished, simple draft.
Reading Written Statements: Similarly to pre-recorded videos, this keeps things clear and concise. If everyone in the room has information to share, the writing can either be assigned in advance or take place during the meeting. This method also gives quieter members or internal thinkers a voice, whereas, verbal sharing might not. Granted, this may strike members as odd or stiff when you first use it, so explaining the “why” behind it, not overusing it, and enforcing any rules you set up is likely to be met with appreciation after the meeting. This is especially helpful for those whose voices are often unheard, or for those who appreciate how the method keeps Mr. Talkative from taking up too much time with his presentation.
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Desired Outcome: Advancing the Thinking
When the leader wants to make progress on a topic, often prior to a decision-making phase, they need to “Advance the Thinking.” Open, large-group discussion is often used here, and while it can be helpful, it has disadvantages. It often loses the voice of your internal processors. Those with physically louder or deeper voices are “heard” more, and open discussion often takes groups down the same old lines of thinking that are common for that group.
According to Sam Kaner in his book Facilitator’s Guide to Decision-Making, if you do use open discussion, you typically need at least 10 minutes for the discussion to go deep enough to be meaningful. However, people tend to lose interest when open discussion goes longer than 20 minutes or so.
Most projects have many steps and considerations, and we are not great multitaskers, so breaking the process down into steps like these from Kaner’s book can be helpful:
Define a problem
Identify root causes
Identify underlying patterns
Sort a list of ideas into themes
Rearrange a list of items by priority
Draw a flowchart
List resources
Define selection criteria
Evaluate options
Edit and/or wordsmith a statement
Those steps are the “What” of the meeting—the topics. But what about the process? Here are some of my favorite options for Advancing the Thinking:
Small Groups: Even small teams of 4–6 can be broken down into small subgroups for discussion. The highlights can then be shared with the larger group, when helpful. Small groups of 3–4 are ideal because they are too small to get lost in, but big enough for the conversation to stimulate new ideas.
Go-Arounds: This simple process of going around the room, in order, and asking each person to either speak or “pass” helps quieter members have a voice. Typically, people also become more succinct than they would be during open discussions.
Fishbowls: This is a small group discussion in which one group observes another.
This video will give you an idea of how it looks. This method is often used when different stakeholders’ opinions are needed. One stakeholder group listens to what the other stakeholder group discusses and looks for themes or underlying patterns. Perhaps a small clinic is looking to improve community involvement in health care initiatives. Subgroups who take turns being inside the fishbowl might be community leaders, clinic administrators, clinic staff, and clinic clients. Each group wrestles with the question of what hinders community involvement, while the other subgroups listen in and advance the thinking.
Photo by Wilhelm Gunkel on Unsplash
Desired Outcome: Building Community
Often this is dismissed as an invalid meeting outcome, but we all know that when there is poor community, every other area of the work is affected. Building Community strengthens bonds and increases trust. In my circles, shared meals, birthday celebrations, or off-site retreats are the most common ways we build community. But, what are some ways to build community even during a regular meeting?
Celebrating Small Wins: It's important to regularly celebrate in our meetings. Because our brains have a negativity bias, we tend to look at all that’s been undone or isn’t going well. Taking time to look at what is going well can boost morale and increase energy. Try simply taking three minutes to share what’s going well lately, or asking, “What is there to celebrate from our completed project?” This can do a lot for group morale!
Go-Arounds with a Personal Question: Get beyond the “What’s your favorite ice cream?” type of questions and find questions that are both meaningful and tie into your upcoming significant conversation.
So, for example, if your group is going to talk about how to welcome new staff moving to your country this summer, you could ask each person to share what it felt like to be new to living cross-culturally.
Not only does it help each person connect more with one another, but it also gets the group grounded in the potential experience of newcomers—the upcoming discussion topic. Some people find it hard to think of questions like this, so find someone on your team to delegate this to if it’s not a good fit for you.
You’ll also want to work from easy questions to more vulnerable ones as your team grows in trust and connectedness. This process can also be very helpful in pairs or small groups, especially if more vulnerable questions are used. Small groups are easier for trust and safety.
Other-Centered Reflective Listening: We need a way to build community, even in the midst of difficult discussions, and other-centered listening is it. It is extremely valuing and trust-building to be listened to well. I can feel close and even bonded to others with whom I disagree if they have really listened to me and I have really listened to them.
Other-centered reflective listening is a sacrificial way to hear what is important to others and reflect back the heart of what the other person shared. Other-centered reflective listening is the most powerful skill around for building cohesiveness and avoiding or managing conflict. This skill allows me to listen to someone else even if I disagree with everything they are saying. Both training and the intentionality of using the skill regularly are necessary to reap its amazing long-term benefits.
So, there you have 9 dynamic methods to make your meeting more fun and useful. Wouldn’t it be great if the next time you overhear your staff talking about your meetings, you hear them say: “I really liked the last meeting. I wonder what we’ll do next?”
