Reimagining Work Meetings: Strategies for Boosting Employee Engagement

Caroline is a senior manager in finance for a large retail group. Her role is to lead change across the organisation, particularly across the finance group, seeking opportunities to collaborate and share resources across teams. She hates her job. She spends day after day on calls with colleagues from across Europe, listening to endless presentations and update meetings. They all follow the same format, a slide deck with almost illegible slides, whilst the presenter seems to talk endlessly. There is no magic, no joy, just people following the same tired routine and hoping that someone on the call is paying attention. Caroline is not alone in this. 70% of work meetings are considered a waste of time, and with us spending over half of our working life in these meetings, surely this has to change!

The human brain is magnificent, but also predictable. It is quickly exhausted by routine, losing interest, and switching off. That is why pilots use autopilot, so that a computer takes control when it is likely that a human could make a mistake through monotony.  In order to make meetings magical and pleasurable we need to excite the brain with something new, novel, and interesting. We need to help our participants to discover something. Discovery means thinking, reflecting, and learning. A simple technique to make your meetings better is to switch your approach when sharing information.

Filter information that is repetitive. Ask yourself if you are helping your participants by sharing what is already known. Surely, they are in attendance to discover the exceptions or the novel.

When you have filtered the content to focus on the different, then instead of making statements, ask questions. Even if you are presenting, the fact that you ask a question will engage the brains of your audience and trigger some engagement. It is even more effective if you can get responses in the chat or at the table. For example, imagine you have a report where the sales have increased more than expected and instead of the usual 2% rise, they are 3.5% up. Before you share the data point, encourage some thinking. Ask the audience a question “what do you think might have caused an increase in the sales over the last report?” Follow with “given your thinking what effect might that have had? What do you think this data point is?” Finally show the number.

This simple switch encourages your audience the listen, engage and discover. It could turn an update meeting into a productive thinking event, that your audience leave remembering for the right reasons. Help people like Caroline to rediscover the joy in work by asking questions instead of making statements.

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