A change will do you good

Sheryl Crow once sang those very words in a song about making positive changes to one’s life. Following the same formulaic process every day can become tedious, and making a few changes every so often can making a boring routine more interesting. This is especially true in the traditional workplace meeting. 

There is a commercial currently making the rounds on Canadian television from a new retirement income program called HelloLife. The commercial features a man walking out of his office, bidding farewell to many boring aspects of workplace life, such as “meetings about meetings,” for example. Indeed, meetings can often be sleep-inducers, but there are ways of turning that around.

One of the main reasons why meetings are dreaded by many employees is that they allow for little, if any, opportunities to collaborate or contribute ideas to a project. In a classic example, many meetings consist of the project manager or company brass doing the majority of the talking. They explain the task at hand, delegate and distribute the work among the employees, discuss productivity and financial goals, and so on. The employees who are working on the front lines are inexplicably excluded from the discussion, which makes little sense because it is they who are doing the actual work.

If you’re going to hold a meeting to discuss these and other aspects of a major project, it would only make sense to let employees have the floor and allow them to discuss their progress, voice any concerns, and ask appropriate questions. Otherwise, the entire meeting seems one-sided, and the employees will simply not be interested in the proceedings.

This is exactly why many offices are taking steps to reinvent their meetings. They are transforming them from an executive gabfest into a highly collaborative discussion where all, regardless of their positions on the corporate ladder, gain knowledge, insight, and senses of belonging and accomplishment. And most importantly, they are trying to inject a bit of fun into the proceedings by turning meetings into “un-meetings.”

An un-meeting is more free-form in nature than its rigidly-structured counterpart. There are set discussion topics, but everyone can jump in and share their ideas freely. They usually don’t last as long so that the time saved can be channeled into completing the work, thus increasing productivity. Best of all, the un-meeting need not take place in a boardroom with several people. The rise of collaborative tools and software, such as Skype and Cisco Spark, can facilitate meetings that are entirely or partially virtualized, especially if one or more of the participants are working remotely.

Employees are sometimes criticized for not sharing what they’ve stored in their idea silos. If given a chance to collaborate, their morale will be boosted and they will feel valued within the workplace. Offices are like complex machines; if one part of the machine stops working, the whole structure falls apart. Un-meetings ensure that everyone gets a chance to share their piece in order to keep the machine in good working order.