The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Category: Meetings

  • Try this easy happiness hack in your next meeting

    Try this easy happiness hack in your next meeting

    When is your next meeting? Tomorrow? This afternoon? Or are you already late for your next meeting?

    We spend a lot of time in work meetings and they don’t seem to make us very happy.

    So here’s a simple tip you can try very easily:  Open your next meeting with a round where each person shares something positive. You can pick one of these questions and let everyone share:

    • Name one thing you’ve accomplished since the last meeting that you’ve been proud of.
    • Name a person who has helped you since the last meeting.
    • Mention one thing you’re looking forward to at work in the coming week.
    • What’s the funniest thing someone has told you in the last week?
    • Mention something interesting you’ve learned in the last week.

    Don’t spend a lot of time on this, just give each participant about 30 seconds to share something positive. If the group is bigger than 10-12 people, let people share in pairs and then let 3 or 4 people share with the whole group so it doesn’t take more than a few minutes.

    It really works wonders for a meeting. One person told me this after trying it out:

    Hi Alexander,

    I have been reading your work for a few days now, and I cannot get enough.

    We have 4 analysts on our team, who touch many if not all groups in our company. Our role often means our view is black and white in order to deliver results, which is often received in a bad light.

    So, I tried starting a meeting with something positive. It was like the Jedi mind trick for convincing others to lobby for our interests!

    My Sr Analyst was struggling to keep her jaw from dropping. No more than a simple ask of what is the funniest thing your kids have said to you lately. Everyone had a story, and we all laughed for a quick 2 minutes before getting to the agenda.

    Just wanted to say, “Thank you,”

    All the best,

    -Grant

    And it’s not only fun, it will also make your meeting more effective as this experiment shows:

    Psychological experiments can be very devious, and this one was certainly no exception. The focus was meetings and the format was simple: Groups of people were asked to discuss and reach consensus on a contentious topic.

    Here’s the devious bit: Unbeknownst to the other participants one member of the group was an actor hired by the researchers. The actor was told to speak first in the discussions. In half the experiments he would say something positive while in the other half he would start by saying something critical. After that he simply participated in the discussion like the other group members.

    The experiment showed that when the first thing said in the meeting was positive, the discussion turned out more constructive, people listened more and were more likely to reach consensus. When the first statement was negative the mood became more hostile, people were more argumentative and consensus became less likely.

    The researchers concluded that the way a meeting starts has a large impact on the tone of the discussion and on whether or not the group will eventually reach consensus.

    Try it out and let me know how it works for you.

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  • Happiness tip: Start your next meeting with something positive

    Psychological experiments can be very devious, and this one was certainly no exception. The focus was meetings and the format was simple: Groups of people were asked to discuss and reach consensus on a contentious topic.

    Here’s the devious bit: Unbeknownst to the other participants one member of the group was an actor hired by the researchers. The actor was told to speak first in the discussions. In half the experiments he would say something positive while in the other half he would start by saying something critical. After that he simply participated in the discussion like the other group members.

    The experiment showed that when the first thing said in the meeting was positive, the discussion turned out more constructive, people listened more and were more likely to reach consensus. When the first statement was critical the mood became more hostile, people were more argumentative and consensus became less likely.

    The researchers concluded that the way a meeting starts has a large impact on the tone of the discussion and on whether or not the group will eventually reach consensus.

    Ah – meetings. The most energizing, creative and fun activity in the workplace. What’s that you say? They’re not? Well they can be. In fact they should be. Here’s a happiness tip that we’ve introduce with many of our clients that tends to work really well: Start your next meeting with something positive.

    Many groups, projects or departments open their meetings with a round where each participant can say what he or she is working on, and quite often this ends up as a litany of complaints and problems. But as the experiment cited above shows, this is likely to affect the whole meeting.

    So do this instead: Open meetings with a round where each person answers a question such as:

    • Name one thing you’ve accomplished since the last meeting that you’ve been proud of?
    • Name a person who has helped you since the last meeting.
    • Mention one thing you’re looking forward to in the coming week/month?
    • What’s the funniest thing someone has told you in the last week?
    • Mention something interesting you’ve learned since the last meeting

    Pick a new question for each meeting and make some up yourself – as long as they focus on something positive.

    Don’t spend a lot of time on this, just give each participant 20-30 seconds to share something positive. As the experiment mentioned above shows, a meeting becomes much more productive when you start with something positive instead of with a round of collective and individual moans.

    One reader of this blog actually tried it and here’s what he told me afterwards:

    Hi Alexander,

    I have been reading your work for a few days now, and I cannot get enough.

    We have 4 analysts on our team, who touch many if not all groups in our company, and the insight you provide in your articles is invaluable. Our role often means our view is black and white in order to deliver results, which is often received in a bad light.

    So, I immediately utilized item 1 of your five weird tips for great meetings. It was like the Jedi mind trick for convincing others to lobby for our interests!

    My Sr Analyst was struggling to keep her jaw from dropping. No more than a simple ask of what is the funniest thing your kids have said to you lately. Everyone had a story, and we all laughed for a quick 2 minutes before getting to the agenda.

    Just wanted to say, “Thank you,”

    All the best,
    -Grant

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  • Try this Jedi mind trick in your next meeting

    Just got this awesome message on LinkedIn:

    Hi Alexander,

    I have been reading your work for a few days now, and I cannot get enough.

    We have 4 analysts on our team, who touch many if not all groups in our company, and the insight you provide in your articles is invaluable. Our role often means our view is black and white in order to deliver results, which is often received in a bad light.

    So, I immediately utilized item 1 of your five weird tips for great meetings. It was like the Jedi mind trick for convincing others to lobby for our interests!

    My Sr Analyst was struggling to keep her jaw from dropping. No more than a simple ask of what is the funniest thing your kids have said to you lately. Everyone had a story, and we all laughed for a quick 2 minutes before getting to the agenda.

    Just wanted to say, “Thank you,”

    All the best,
    -Grant

    Sometimes the simple things work best.

    Related posts

     

  • Meet me in the UFO

    UFO at Zappos in Vegas

    This awesome UFO is parked in the courtyard of the Zappos.com HQ in Las Vegas and can be used for meetings. I love that kind of thing.

  • A Chief Storyteller shares his best happiness tips

    In December we did a tour of some of the happiest workplaces in the US to see what ideas we could steal borrow from them.

    Above is an interview I did with Richard Sheridan, the founder and Chief Storyteller of Menlo Innovations in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In this brief video, he shares some of the great things they’ve done to make Menlo a very happy workplace.

    Among other things Rich talks about:

    • How leaders can pump fear out of the room
    • Never working more than 40 hours a week
    • Eliminating meetings
    • Eliminating internal email
    • Creating a physical space that’s conducive to happiness at work

    Watch it and let me know what you think. Is there anything your company could learn from Menlo? Are you already doing something similar?

    Rich is also the author of the excellent book Joy Inc, which I’ve reviewed here.

  • Meetings

    Meetings are one of the most hated workplace activities. Studies show that the more meetings people attend, the less happy they are at work and that meetings are the biggest time waster keeping people from actually, you know, doing their jobs.

    This passage from the book jPod by Douglas Coupland illustrates it brilliantly:

    Here’s my theory about meetings and life; the three things you can’t fake are erections, competence and creativity. That’s why meetings become toxic — they put uncreative people in a situation in which they have to be something they can never be. And the more effort they put into concealing their inabilities, the more toxic the meeting becomes.

    One of the most common creativity-faking tactics is when someone puts their hands in prayer position and conceals their mouth while they nod at you and say, “Mmmmmmm. Interesting.” If pressed, they’ll add, “I’ll have to get back to you on that.” Then they don’t say anything else.

    Heh!

  • Much Better Meetings – for Danes

    Much Better Meetings

    We are extremely proud to be able to announce our newest product, which is called Much Better Meetings.

    Basically, meetings often suck and make people unhappy at work.

    I talked to a friend today who says he has a doctor’s note to the effect that any meeting longer than 10 minutes gives him a nosebleed.

    Much Better Meetings is a complete system, ready to install in any meeting room, which helps you plan and facilitate effective, structured, fun meetings.

    However, I’m afraid it’s only available in Danish so far under the name of Meget Bedre Møder. Read all about it at www.megetbedremoeder.dk.

    Depending on the interest we get an English version may be coming soon.

  • Five weeeeeeeeird tips for great meetings

    Meetings

    Meetings aren’t exactly the most popular workplace activity, as illustrated by this passage from the book jPod by Douglas Coupland:

    Here’s my theory about meetings and life; the three things you can’t fake are erections, competence and creativity. That’s why meetings become toxic—they put uncreative people in a situation in which they have to be something they can never be. And the more effort they put into concealing their inabilities, the more toxic the meeting becomes.

    One of the most common creativity-faking tactics is when someone puts their hands in prayer position and conceals their mouth while they nod at you and say, “Mmmmmmm. Interesting.??? If pressed, they’ll add, “I’ll have to get back to you on that.??? Then they don’t say anything else.

    Web company 37signals consider meetings harmful because:

    • They break your working day into small, incoherent pieces on a schedule incompatible with the natural breaks in your flow
    • They are normally all about words and abstract concepts, not real things (like a piece of code or a screen of design)
    • They usually contain an abysmal low amount of information conveyed per minute
    • They often contain at least one moron that inevitably get his turn to waste everyone’s time with nonsense
    • They drift off subject easier than a rear-wheel driven Chicago cab in heavy snow
    • They frequently have agendas so vague nobody is really sure what its about
    • They require thorough preparation that people rarely do anyway

    I kinda agree. That is certainly how meetings are in many companies. The weekly department meeting, the project status meeting and the monthly division meeting are all seen as boring, a waste of time, painful and something that simply keeps people from getting real work done.

    Last year, The Guardian mentioned a study that showed that meetings make people very unhappy at work, and that the more meetings one has to attend and the more time one spends in meetings, the greater the negative effects. This becomes especially depressing in the face of the fact that overall time spent in meetings is rising in most countries, and that some people, especially managers, spend most of their work day in meetings.

    Now, while having fewer meetings is definitely the way to go in many workplaces, eliminating all meetings is not an option in today’s team-based work environment. This means that having good meetings become essential.

    So what is a good meeting? They are:

    • Efficient – So stuff gets done!
    • Positive and fun – So people enjoy themselves and look forward to the next meeting.
    • Participative – So everyone participates equally, instead of just zoning out or faking agreement.
    • Open – So people say what they really think.
    • Creative – So the thinking goes beyond the usual and into new territory.

    The usual tips you’ll hear for managing meetings are kinda OK. You know, stuff like “have an agenda and distribute it in time”, “make sure to have the right people present”, “make sure to start and end on time” and “only have a meeting when necessary”. All good advice, but it does not address the goals above. This means that though most companies and teams follow this typical advice, many meetings still suck.

    If we really want open, fun, creative, participative meetings we need to go beyond the standard advice and venture into slightly-weird-land. Here are five easy ways to do it.

    1: Open the meeting with a positive round

    Psychological experiments have shown that the way a meeting starts, sets the tone for the whole meeting. Start the meeting with complaints, problems and mutual blame, and that’s what you’ll get.

    But if you start out with something positive, the rest of the meeting is more likely to be more fun. The best way to start a meeting positively, is to ask each participant to briefly (= less than 30 seconds) share something positive. Here are some ideas:

    • Name one thing you’ve accomplished since the last meeting that you’ve been proud of?
    • Name a person who has helped you since the last meeting.
    • Mention one thing you’re looking forward to in the coming week/month?
    • What’s the funniest thing someone has told you in the last week?
    • Mention something interesting you’ve learned since the last meeting.

    This sets a much better tone for the rest of the meeting – and it’s also a lot more fun than opening with an endless litany of complaints and problems.

    2: Interrupt the meeting regularly

    I know you want to make the most of your meeting time – and that makes it tempting to think that “MAN, we have a long agenda today – let’s skip the breaks and get more done.” Only thing is, it doesn’t work that way.

    You need to interrupt the flow of the meeting regularly. This keeps people’s minds focused and it makes the whole thing more fun and relaxed. Here’s how.

    First of all: A five-minute break every hour is not an option, it’s mandatory! You can’t have a productive meeting if half the people present are seriously in need of a restroom visit.

    Secondly: Every half hour, do a quick two-minute creative break of some kind. You can: Get people to stand up and stretch, have a quick rock-paper-scissor tournament, ask everyone to tell their neighbor a riddle or a joke, whatever. Make it something fun and light-hearted that activates people in some way.

    So if you have a two-hour meeting starting at 1PM, include these breaks:
    1 PM: Meeting starts
    1:30 PM: Two-minute creative break
    2 PM: Five minute break
    2:30 PM: Two-minute creative break
    3 PM: Meeting ends

    Bring a kitchen timer and set it to 30 minutes, to make sure you remember the creative breaks.

    3: Lose the table

    What purpose do tables really serve at a meeting, except to give you a place to put down your coffee cup and to keep your head from hitting the floor when you fall asleep?

    Traditional meeting room
    Traditional meeting room. Note the huuuuge distance from one end to the other and the place of honor at the head of the table.

    There are many advantages to table-less meetings:

    • People are more free to move around, instead of being locked into one sitting position.
    • Communication flows better, because you can see the entire person, not just from the chest up.
    • You increase participation, because people can’t simply slump down and hide throughout the meeting.
    • You can get people closer together. If you seat 20 people around a table, the distance from one end to the other is going to be huge.
    • Seating people in a circle signals that everyone is equal. It’s democratic, unlike the normal meeting table, where the boss sits at the head of the table.

    So instead of meeting around a table, simply put the required number of chairs in a circle with nothing in the middle. If you’re going to be looking at a lot of plans or papers, hang them on the wall and arrange the chairs in a semi-circle in front of them.

    4: Get the body in there

    Your body is not good at sitting still for extended periods of time. The longer you sit still, the more stiff and tired the body gets. And when the body is tired and stiff, so is the mind.

    A very simple thing to do is to get people to stand up and stretch. It only takes a minute to:

    1. Get everyone to stand up.
    2. Bounce on your feet for 10 seconds, just to get the blood flowing.
    3. Stretch your arms up towards the ceiling – as high as you can.
    4. Keep your arms up and lean to the right. Hold for 10 seconds.
    5. Lean to the left, hold.
    6. Lean back, hold.
    7. Lean forward, touch your toes.
    8. Sit back down.

    You can do it at the beginning of the meeting, after every break or whenever you sense that people are zoning out and losing focus.

    Try this one day in a meeting, and you will discover that once you’ve stretched your body, your mind will feel fresher, more flexible and more creative.

    5: Use strategically placed silence

    This is probably the one thing you find in no meetings. I mean – the purpose of meetings is to talk, right. Silence kinda defeats that purpose, doesn’t it?

    No. The purpose of meetings is not to talk – the purpose of meetings is to arrive at ideas, solutions, plans and decisions in such a way that:

    1. The ideas are so good that they can be carried out.
    2. The process that leads to the ideas is so good that people want to carry the ideas out.

    And in this respect, silence can be a great tool. Because while some people can think while they’re talking – most can’t.

    A well-placed two-minute silent break is a great chance for people to stop and think. To figure out what the deeper issues are. To see the solution that is not immediately obvious. To find out how they feel about the issues being discussed.

    Here are some ways to use it:

    • When discussing an issue, focus first on presenting the facts without discussing solutions. Have two minutes of silence, then discuss solutions.
    • If discussions become heated, and it seems like no progress is made, two minutes of silence can be a great way to cool the whole thing down.
    • When a decision has been made, give people two minutes of silence to think about how they feel about this decision.

    The way you do it is that at the appropriate time, you announce a two-minute silence, and you keep track of time and let people know when the two minutes have passed.

    And let me warn you right away: It feels very strange the first few times. It’s funny that silence should be so threatening, but because most meetings are all about the talking, and we’ve come to think that silence is awkward. That if no one’s talking, something is wrong. After you’ve done it a few times, it becomes a lot easier, and it can even be very pleasant to take a break from all the talking!

    The upshot

    Time spent in meetings is constantly increasing. Bad meetings suck the life force out of people, leaving them tired and unhappy at work. Bad meetings also lead to bad decisions, reduced motivation and conflicts.

    If we really want fun, positive meetings, where all participants can speak their mind, where new ideas are generated and developed and where the time is used as efficiently as possible, we need to go beyond the usual advice and try something slightly weird. This blogpost presents some ways you can do that.

    Yes, adding these things to a meeting will take a little time out of the schedule, but I think we all know that the problem with bad meetings is not how much time we spend in them – it’s the quality of that time. It’s whether we spend that time being energized, creative and having fun – or whether we spend it wishing we could be back at our desks doing some real work.

    What about you? What unusual methods do you use to make meetings fun, creative and efficient? How do good or bad meetings affect your energy and motivation? Have you tried any of the tips mentioned here? Write a comment, I’d really like to know your take.

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