Five Reasons to Make Meetings More Fun

The average person spends more time in meetings than they抎 like to. The average manager spends the majority of their workday in meetings. Given these facts, it isn抰 surprising that you can read lots of books, articles and tips about running and managing meetings more effectively. Seldom will you read that you should make your meetings more fun.

In this article I will give you five reasons why you should purposefully inject more fun into your meetings.

Increase engagement. Let me state the obvious. People like things that are fun. They engage mentally and emotionally in things they are enjoying. Ask yourself: Would you like people to be more fully engaged in your next meeting? Do you want people to be more mentally involved in the problem you are solving or the issue you are discussing? You抳e brought people together to benefit from their presence, not for them to fill a seat. Making your meetings more fun will increase their engagement in the meeting and help you produce better outcomes.

Increase communication. You can抰 take advantage of people抯 knowledge and experience if they don抰 share it. Including an element of fun in your meetings will get people more comfortable with speaking up and sharing their ideas.

Improve relationships. If people know each other better and are more comfortable with the others in the meeting, they will more likely share their ideas. So anything we can do to improve the relationships between people is a positive step. Does this mean that everyone in a meeting needs to be best friends? Of course not! What it does mean is that as people know each other better they will be more open to the ideas of others and more willing to share their own. Fun can make all of this happen.

Increase energy. How many meetings have you attended where the energy level feels like it is at zero? People抯 minds are elsewhere or on other projects. People aren抰 interested in the topic of the meeting. People don抰 understand why they are there. And all of this shows up in somber, lifeless body language and effort. Of course there are many ways to remedy this besides injecting fun into your meetings, but fun is still a wonderful tool to improve the energy level and attention to the meeting topics

Increase memory and retention. We remember things that are more enjoyable longer. When we make our meetings more fun, we increase people抯 ability to remember the content and remember the decisions. When people remember the meeting抯 events better it improves the likelihood that they will complete their action items, share the results of the meeting more accurately with others and much more.

The five reasons above are excellent in themselves. But beyond them individually, the overriding reason to make your meetings more fun is that they will be more productive. We have meetings to get people with different opinions, perspectives and experiences working together. Our whole purpose in doing this is to create valuable outcomes. When we can find ways to make the investment of time and energy for all of those involved more productive, we should implement these ways!

This does not mean to add an item to your agenda that says fun. Nor does it mean that you should change the focus of your meetings ?you are meeting for a important purpose and that should still be your focus.

Just remember that when we can make our meetings more enjoyable, even fun, we can enhance the productivity of those meetings ?and productivity and results are why we were meeting in the first place.

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Seven Reasons Organizational Culture Matters

We spend 40 . . . or 45 . . . or 50 . . . or more hours at work each week. Many of us spend more time with those we work with than we do our families. For us to be content and fulfilled people, that time must be valuable for more than a dollar. . .

We want to be engaged in our work. We yearn for work that is enjoyable, meaningful and engaging. When we are engaged we are safer on the job, more productive and more willing and able to delight Customers.

It is for these basic reasons that organizational culture matters. It is the right thing for an organization to do - to think about the work environment, working relationships and 揾ow we do things here.?
Focusing on building and sustaining an organizational culture is one way of showing that people are the organization抯 most valuable asset.

There are of course many other bottom line business reasons to focus on and build organizational culture. Here are seven of those reasons.

A strong culture is a talent-attractor. Your organizational culture is part of the package that prospective employees look at when assessing your organization. Gone are the days of selecting the person you want from a large eager pool. The talent market is tighter and those looking for a new organization are more selective than ever. The best people want more than a salary and good benefits. They want an environment they can enjoy and succeed in.

A strong culture is talent-retainer. How likely are people to stay if they have other options and don抰 love where they are? Your organizational culture is a key component of a person抯 desire to stay.

A strong culture engages people. People want to be engaged in their work. According to a Gallup survey at least 22 million American workers are extremely negative or 揳ctively disengaged??this loss of productivity is estimated to be worth between $250-$300 Billion annually. Your culture can engage people. Engagement creates greater productivity, which can impact profitability. Need I say more?

A strong culture creates energy and momentum. Build a culture that is vibrant and allows people to be valued and express themselves and you will create a very real energy. That positive energy will permeate the organization and create a new momentum for success. Energy is contagious and will build on itself, reinforcing the culture and the attractiveness of the organization.

A strong culture changes the view of 搘ork.?/b> Most people have a negative connotation of the word work. Work equals drudgery, 9-5, 搕he salt mine.? When you create a culture that is attractive, people抯 view of 揼oing to work?will change. Would you rather see work as drudgery or a joy? Which do you think your employees would prefer? Which will lead to the best results?

A strong culture creates greater synergy. A strong culture brings people together. When people have the opportunity to (and are expected to) communicate and get to know each other better, they will find new connections. These connections will lead to new ideas and greater productivity - in other words, you will be creating synergy. Literally, 1 + 1 + right culture = more than 10. How is that for leverage?

A strong culture makes everyone more successful. Any one of the other six reasons should be reason enough to focus on organizational culture. But the bottom line is that an investment of time, talent and focus on organizational culture will give you all of the above benefits. Not only is creating a better culture a good thing to do for the human capital in the business, it makes good business sense too.

Hopefully this article has helped you see that time spent enhancing your organizational culture will be time wisely invested. Regardless of your current culture, it is never too late to enhance it and to begin creating the benefits described above.

What are you waiting for?

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