Meetings are a journey, and with traditional formats they become a commute and we fail to think about where we are going.
In January, I was fortunate to attend and be a presenter/facilitator at the Breaking the Rules Conference led by the MPI Belgium Chapter in Ghent. The MPI team led by Gemmeke de Jongh (MPI Belgium Chapter) alongside meeting designer Mike van der Vijver dared to do things differently. The experience was refreshing (even rehydrating), attracting and engaging about 80 participants from Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and France.
I was proud to be part of it, because as well as inspired content, there was a focus on designing, re-imagining and experimenting to enhance understanding of the meeting experience. Some things worked, and some didn’t work quite as well. The event emphasized the risks we take when we innovate. The difference here and at other events dedicated to meeting and hospitality professionals is that our conferences—our "meetings about meetings"—should be safe places to test new ideas, formulas and concepts: laboratories for experimentation and feedback combining the art and science of meeting design.
One of the most striking things at the event was the start—no coffee or pastries, just bread and water. Beautiful baked and assorted breads and a wide selection of waters—spring, sparkling, mineral, designer—but water nonetheless.
I watched the entrance and saw some attendees looking a little challenged, and others delighted as they moved into the space. The simple shift from the obvious choice to the least obvious choice set the agenda for the meeting. This clever disruption of traditional format met the objectives of the event. Participants had to think differently, because things were different from the start. This would be no ordinary conference and certainly not a conference for ordinary thinking. Somehow the lack of coffee seemed to make people more alert and more engaged, and attendees were chatting immediately, if nothing else to discuss caffeine withdrawal.
The problem with sticking to traditional formats is that the meeting journey becomes a commute. If we commute the same way all the time, we fail to notice what we are passing, what we see, and we do not think about where we are going. When we travel on autopilot we lose time rather than use time. I have been to meetings where I have seen people trying to leave because they have work to do—they are not engaged, inspired or thinking about this journey, but rather their minds are wandering back to what they could be doing in an alternative space and time.
The worst meetings I have attended used tired, traditional formats in which the content is predictable, the layout typical and the subsequent conversations stilted. After all, how can you be present in a space and converse with people when your mind is elsewhere? However much coffee slows, these environments cannot stimulate us to think. When meetings do not disrupt our patterns, we switch to autopilot.
And the problem with autopilot mode is that no thinking is required. So the takeaway from the conference is quite simple: A small change of one tradition can make a big difference to a meeting outcome. By daring to be different we wake up and engage our attendees. So let’s follow the Belgian example... What rule will you break in your next meeting?
