Do Meeting Rooms Have Your Team Running Scared?

How many times have you seen participants flee from meeting rooms like they were being chased?  When was the last time your team looked forward to a meeting?  Why is that?  Don’t they want to share information and ideas, learn something new, develop relationships, influence decisions, move forward or create a new plan?  Could it be that they aren’t looking forward to the meeting because meetings aren’t as productive as they should be?

At GO Where Meetings Matter we believe every time people meet there is an opportunity to change someone’s world.  And we want to change the world one meeting at a time, starting with Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Here is GO Where Meetings Matter’s recipe for a successful meeting:

1. Know when to hold a meeting and, more importantly, when not to
2. Invite the right people
3. Be organized and focused (note: these are not the same thing)
4. Choose the right environment (geographic and meeting rooms specifics)
5. Have the right resources available
6. Keep your participants moving (mentally and physically)
7. Choose the right length for the meeting and stick to it
8. Communicate, communicate, communicate
9. Have fuel available

Sounds simple, right?

Let’s be real, most organizations don’t use any checklist when they decide to hold meetings let alone this one.  If they did they would have fewer, more productive, and fun meetings.  Yes, I said fun.  Be honest, when you’re engaged and connecting with people you enjoy it.  Meetings are meant to be engaging and to be truly productive you need to connect, therefore, meetings are meant to be fun.

We invest a lot of time and money when we sequester our teams in meeting rooms.  All too often we squander the value that can be gleaned when we don’t pay attention to the recipe.  I created this amazing creative conference center to address as many of the ingredients shown above as possible.  GO Where Meetings Matter addresses points 4 (Right Environment – our meeting rooms), 5 (Right Resources), and 9 (Fuel) and we even support number 6 as well (our “happy chairs” are a good ab workout).

Is there one of these ingredients that you could add to your next meeting that would motivate your team to race to be the first to your meeting rooms?  Which element do you think is the easiest for you to fix?  Which one do you think your organization would resist the most?