How to hold engaging team meetings
It doesn’t take a major overhaul to make your team meetings more interesting. You can still use your usual meeting techniques, but they need to be fine-tuned to capture and keep people’s interest. Here are some strategies that will make your in-person meetings and virtual meetings more engaging.
Rotate who hosts the meeting
- Meetings can be run by rotating the hosts
Have you ever found yourself zoning out when someone speaks? One-sided meetings are boring for everyone. By allowing team members to take turns in running meetings, they become more engaging and lively. Here are a few ideas on how to do it:
- Delegate meeting facilitation: This way, you can clearly see who is leading the meeting and create a sense of ownership, responsibility, and engagement.
- Rotate facilitator roles: Each team member can guide the discussion and ensure that everyone is heard. When you need Meeting Rooms Birmingham, visit https://birmingham.nettl.com/meeting-room-hire-birmingham-city-centre/
- Positive start
The research done on human behavior has identified a phenomenon known as “emotional contagion,” where people tend to mimic the emotions of those around them. Setting the right mood at the beginning of a meeting can make a huge difference in how it goes.
Start on a positive note
Start your meeting with a positive tone to set the mood. Here’s a way to do it:
- Share your wins. You can share a small victory, an achievement of a company or team, or even a personal triumph from a member or members of the team.
- Use mood-music. For example, during company-wide or all-hands meetings, you can start the meeting with a song that is upbeat to boost everyone’s energy.
- Include everyone
Virtual meetings can be challenging. One of the most difficult challenges to overcome is making everyone feel included in the discussion. Nearly a quarter (25%) of remote workers spend more than six hours a week in meetings. It’s vital that everyone feels included and heard, even if they aren’t physically present.
Summary
Offers ways to make team meetings more engaging without a major overhaul, such as rotating who hosts or facilitates each meeting to create a stronger sense of ownership, and opening with a positive tone, for example by sharing a small win or playing an upbeat song, to boost energy before getting into the agenda.
Questions this article raises
- How often should meeting hosting responsibilities be rotated?
- What other techniques help keep virtual meetings engaging?
- How do you measure whether a team meeting was actually effective?
