Gotta love meetings, especially those long drawn out ones that allow you to catch up on your beauty sleep. The Monday morning special, where you’re still getting over that big weekend, the Friday afternoon rollover, where it’s time to knock off your thinking early and the Wednesday lunchtime lunch n’ learn where you might, if you’re lucky grab 5 minutes to eat something before heading back to work.
Meetings are problematic at best, mindstiflingly boring at worst and often a complete waste of time for all concerned.
It’s time to look at how to get more out of your meetings and hopefully have fewer of them too.
High performance isn’t a wish for, it’s an essential in today’s busy and hectic world. Meetings chew up time, energy and resources that could often be put to better use.
Basically many meetings are:
- too long,
- off topic,
- or inconclusive.
If you are leaving yet another meeting wondering “what was that all about?” it’s time to revisit the why and how.
1. Human brains work best in short chunks of focused time. So keep the meeting short aka 15 minutes.
2. Human brains like certainty and clarity. They are prediction machines. So keep the message being communicated short and to the point.
3. Human brains operate especially well when exercised regularly. So hold a stand up meeting. It keeps people focused, limits the length of discussion and promotes understanding.
Many organisations and businesses now regularly hold “stand ups” because it frees up time for other more productive work and helps keep staff healthy at the same time. Now there’s an unexpected bonus: Healthy brains.
I thought I would share with you the following video on how not to do a stand up meeting from Atlassian. Enjoy.
[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLmDe8pAc6I&w=854&h=480]
Are you into stand ups?
Does your business encourage you to move more at work?
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Photo Credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/30003814@N03/7130758207/”>Leon Fishman<
