Reinvent Meetings for Creativity and Engagement

It is possible to transform the paradigm that all meetings are wasting valuable time and contribute little to the organisation and its people You can reinvent your meetings to boost creativity and engagement. It just takes a bit of innovation.

When people think of meeting they typically think of people around a table engaging in conversation around an agenda. According to a report by Atlassian, a person may spend up to 31 hours in unproductive meetings per month. Adding to this scenario, 91% of people daydreamed and 73% did other work during meetings.

Meetings can boost creativity.

There is plenty of other evidence available that points to meetings having negative impacts on productivity in the workplace. However, there are some ways you can innovate to make your meetings more engaging and constructive for those attending.

An article by Sara Coene on InnovationManagement.se, identifies some new meeting formats that will help boost creativity and engagement in meetings. I recommend you check out the article and I have summarised the ideas here.

Inspiration Tours are visits to inspiring companies, organisations or other venues. Sara points out examples in Silicon Valley, Antwerp and Brussels. There are plenty of great organisations that will welcome an opportunity to host a tour and presentation that showcases their talents.

Start-up Events are excellent to get people discussing ideas and capturing insights into new ways of innovating. There are start- up incubators in most cities and these events are usually publicised.

Pecha Kucha means ‘small talk’ in Japanese. These structured events allow participants to present 20 pictures in a slide deck in 6 minutes and 40 seconds; each picture shown for 20 seconds. The article points to a 80% success rate for these presentations with thorough presenter preparation the most probably success factor.

Notes Day engages people in small groups starting first with their own team and move to other departments. The focus is on the most relevant issues facing the organisation as put forward by the participants.

World Café is often used in workshops and training events. However, the World Café format is an effective way to achieve high levels of dialogue and collaboration. Participants discuss a topic around a table hosted by person who remains at the table while others circulate to other tables. This format is excellent for ensuring ideas are captured.

There are other meeting formats described in the article and I encourage you to have a look. You can innovate to make your meeting more effective, fun and engaging.

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