Monday Tip: Candy for meetings

Last week’s tip was about creating positive meetings and so is this week’s. Only this tip is really, really simple. Ready:

Bring a bowl of candy to a meeting today.

That’s it. Bring candy to a meeting. And share it, obviously, I didn’t mean for you to sit there gorging yourself with everyone else looking on enviously.

Something nice happens to the mood when people eat together, even if they’re only munching on licorice. For extra bonus points:

Bring candy that makes it hard to speak. It’s fun to see a co-worker explain something serious while chewing on a jawbreaker and it lowers the tempo of meetings, resulting in more time for reflection and ideas.
If the meeting gets tense, pass the bowl around. This can break the tension when everyone is chewing winegums.
Replace the candy with something healthier but equally delicious. Strawberries, cherries, apples…

Try to avoid the heavy stuff like donuts and danish – they give people a heavy sugar rush that makes them hyper at first and then tired and apathetic after 30 minutes.

The Chief Happiness Officer’s monday tips are simple, easy, fun things you can do to make yourself and others happy at work and get the work-week off to a great start. Something everyone can do in five minutes, tops. When you try it, write a comment here to tell me how it went.

Previous monday tips.

Comments

7 responses to “Monday Tip: Candy for meetings”

July 31, 2006

emme

I do this often – my team is all female, except for one happy male, so the sugar intake at meetings is traditional. Every other month we try for fruit, but it only lasts until someone thinks of a new type of candy that we have to try out.

We’re sugar slaves.
September 15, 2006

java101.blogspot

this is by far my favorite. i tried it this week and made bunch of co-workers happy.
September 15, 2006

Alexander Kjerulf

Excellent – I’m glad it worked :o)
February 20, 2007

Five weeeeeeeeird tips for great meetings

[…] Monday Tip: Candy for meetings […]
March 2, 2009

Teresa

This might be an all right tip for a man, but a woman who feeds coworkers is sending out mom/wife/caretaker-vibes that are likely to impact everyone’s perceptions and reduce her credibility and her promotability.
March 2, 2009

Joanna M. Pineda

We have a bowl of Hershey’s dark chocolate kisses at every meeting. Everyone knows that if you have a meeting with Matrix Group, you get purple, dark chocolate kisses. We get to say that we’re doing something good for their heart and the meeting is always a little sweeter. I just had a client ask if we could meet at our office so she could enjoy some chocolate. :-)
January 9, 2016

Brie

I’m late to this post, but I’ll say it. @ Teresa – if the simple act of bringing candy to a meeting will “impact everyone’s perceptions and reduce her credibility and her promotability” then she probably didn’t have credibility in the first place.

I work with a savvy manager and all of her direct reports are men. They were traveling to a distant state to work on a long term job – she was on the East Coast and her team was going to Hawaii. She cooked breakfast in the conference room (bacon, eggs, toast, juice, etc. – the works) as a bon voyage before they left for that job. Three years after the successful completion of that job, they still talk about that breakfast. That’s just one example of the different ways she shows appreciation for her team. And it’s mutual. She has earned the respect of her team because of her management style. She has won awards, has been recognized by the company, and received a big promotion last year. She is the kind of manager for whom you want to bend over backwards.

There can be issues – it’s not always perfect. But just because she is a nurturing soul does not mean she can’t be a good leader too – it’s not mutually exclusive. As a bonus, she’s a mom/wife and a fun, creative person. We are lucky to have her. And no, I’m not giving her name out so you can try to steal her away from us.