“Dogs Who Get Off the Leash” Suck

Will people ever stop coming up with tangents to disrupt your meeting? Let's think about that one … hmm, no!

How many times have you sat in a meeting designated for a particular purpose and out of left field flies a comment, concern, or suggestion that occupies a great portion of that meeting going forward? What's worse, the tangent creator (who may well offer a valid point) might feel the need to explain, discuss, and develop a solution right then and there. It could even involve a group of attendees who have little or nothing to do with that issue. Do these tangent creators realize they just want to hear themselves talk, or are they looking for a way to add superficial importance to their value to the organization?

When a dog gets off its leash like this, what happens? As an attendee, you look at your watch, start complaining about time being wasted, and think about the project you need to finish before the end of the day. As a facilitator, you watch as time ticks away, and you witness the rapidly diminishing engagement of your uninvolved attendees.

As the facilitator, please respect the time constraints of the attendees you've invited and make sure you accomplish the objectives set out in your agenda. If the tangential “dog-off-the-leash” idea is critical to your discussion and a stopper for moving forward, break off the meeting for those not involved. Let them get back to what they need to do. Then reconvene in a stated amount of time after a specific group has taken this tangent to the point where it plays into the initial agenda.

If you routinely have attendees who put noncritical tangents into play, and that dog keeps flying off the leash, set the example by yanking back on the chain. Do it quickly and directly to effectively ward off future challenges.

If you're a facilitator, it's important to not put down the attendees who present the tangents or make them feel like outcasts in any way. Their input could be extremely valid and valuable if it's an issue that must be addressed.

Do this: Accept their ideas and empower them to develop solutions before occupying the precious time of non-involved attendees. You'd say, “That's a great idea, Vern, and we need to look at that. Why don't you put together your thoughts and data on this, and we'll review them after this meeting.”

A bigger question is how will you, if you're a mere attendee of said meeting, teach the “heel” command? By stepping up and taking action. As part of the Bore No More! movement, you have equal rights and responsibilities to make meetings more effective. If you sit back and allow Left-Field Leroy to take the meeting off track, then you've forfeited your right to complain.

Whatever position you're in, you'd better learn quickly. If you don't, you're out for a long walk instead of a boring meeting. Bring along the plastic baggie for the crap that will result.

Facilitator SRDs

• Establish a “parking lot” for ideas that need to be addressed but aren't appropriate for this meeting or this group. If your meetings are prone to time-wasting tangents, this can be a great way to side-step them while still accepting them as valuable. Do this by establishing a predefined “parking lot” chart or area of the whiteboard. When off-subject items come up, “park them” by writing them in this special area so those who've spoken up feel appeased. Then assign a person and/or date for following up on these issues.
• If you don't like having meetings that are do-overs (see “Déjà Meetings Suck” under Agenda Item 6), then you'd better make sure you come back to these parking lot items eventually.
• If you're expecting a person to bring up something you know is not relevant, address it with that person ahead of time in a professional way. Either discuss it personally before the meeting or set up a separate time to review it afterward.
• Establish a “cop” for each meeting, a person to police the group to stay on task. Make sure you change personnel often, though, so the task doesn't go to their egos to start policing all the functions in the office. You're not looking for “Dwight” from NBC-TV's The Office!

Attendee SRDs

• Your meeting leader's ability to recognize a tangent and redirect it may be lacking. Don't be afraid to suggest items go to the parking lot or to tell Left-Field Leroy that the primary topics need to be addressed first.
• Hold up your agenda and point to the item you're supposed to be addressing. Or point to the clock or your watch. No dialogue necessary.
• Tell the facilitator to schedule a meeting on that topic after finishing this meeting's objectives.
• Bring plenty of other work to do, so at least you can get something done today.

It's possible that addressing your concerns this way will trigger the meeting to get back on track. Of course, you could also wait it out and not complain, but that's no fun—and not the purpose of this agenda item.

Conference Rooms Suck

We've looked at why and how we meet, but what about where?

When was the last time you thought about the physical location or attributes of your meeting space? Was it extra space that a conference table and whiteboard could fit in without much thought? Is your conference room a place where old chairs and furniture go before they die? When attendees enter a 1970s crusty, wallpapered, stinky room (you know the one I mean), how does it make them feel?

Attendees or even facilitators don't commonly think about these aspects of a meeting room, but they should. Let's consider what you might do, and heed advice from a few experts as well.

In a recent blog post I asked, “Where have your best and worst meetings taken place?” Here are just a few of my favorite responses. Pick which ones are yours.

• Disney.
• A morgue.
• A cubicle in a warehouse where countless items were being shipped during the holiday season.
• Conference room overlooking Times Square in NYC.
• Movie theater, complete with popcorn and snacks.
• An 8′ × 12′ conference room with a 7′ × 11′ table. No windows, floor-to-ceiling whiteboard on every wall, and too many florescent lights. It felt like an interrogation room from a (very) low-budget cop movie. Oh, and it was in New Jersey.

Some of these examples are far out, and didn't come cheap, but here's the point. Your meeting doesn't have to take place in a room with a long table and chairs. The instant your team members walk into that room, they might instinctively want to settle in and become brain dead. Why? Because that's what they've always done in this room.

Besides the well-worn groove in the carpet that acts as the guiding light to your conference room, do you always need to have your meetings there? In fact, do you even need to call it a conference room? The very word conference doesn't energize 'em. How about you? Because most meetings are collaborative in nature, let's go with collaboration room, or better yet, let's learn more about what's known as collaboration space.

Mark Henson, founder and chief imagination officer of Sparkspace, offers great advice on creating better conference space. Meeting planners from around the country have visited his facility in Columbus, Ohio, to see what he does so well.

Sparkspace is a one-of-a-kind conference, teamwork, and personal development center where it's impossible to have an ordinary, boring business meeting. From the overstuffed chairs, full-wall working spaces, and interactive nature of each specialized room, it's been designed and built from the ground up to provide space built around collaboration and inspiration.

So rather than build three rooms designed to be all things to all people, why not look at specific functions for each room, with carryover effects? No need to have a kitchen table in every room of the house, is there? Think lots of variety.

Many meeting rooms are also being “overtechnified,” which means technology is put into place without the participants understanding why they should use it or even how to do so. I've been to many a venue or conference center with the fancy tech-savvy podiums or devices, but the only people who can get those devices to work are the audio-visual specialists on-site. Breaking up your meeting to call in the AV guy isn't what you had in mind when you planned your meeting, was it? It breaks into the whole “attendee engagement” thing you're striving for. Don't abuse the technology just because the designer/builder says you need the next cool thing in the marketplace.

Brandon Dupler, the principal at Dupler Office, specializes in creating places that enable and inspire workers to achieve their best. He believes that the right design of an office space can inspire performance, enhance productivity, increase morale, and create exceptional value. The key word I hear from Brandon, many times over is space, not room.

“Take down the walls and get rid of the table,” Brandon says. “Seating should be comfortable, flexible, and mobile so meeting hosts can arrange the space however they want for optimal interaction based on their goals. As personal space continues to shrink, people need their collaborative space to increase—space in which they can interact with each other and with their technology seamlessly. If they can't, the space is useless.”

In place of a standard break room, perhaps you could create a caf e with a mix of high-top tables, wooden stools, lounge seating, coffee tables, and fast, secure wireless connectivity. Which do you think would be used more? And why not set up a collaboration space among sections of cubicles for quick meet-and-greet sessions with your team?

If you want to build or rent some of the greatest meeting space imaginable, Mark and Brandon are two people you'll want to meet. But what about all the not-so-hip folks who have only a conference room and no time or budget to build a new one? Here are suggestions for what you can do.

Facilitator SRDs

Get out of the stinkin' box:

• Do you even need to use a conference room? What about your local or state park—or even an amusement park? Trust me, a few times on one of those “spinning thingies” can generate wild ideas. Hit the swings and then talk about your plans imaginatively. You'll find that exercise gets the blood flowing to the brain far better than an ergonomic chair.
• Don't think your boss will go for the park idea? What about the building lobby, rooftop, coffee shop, or local library to break the norm? The key is not to skip class but to prove your ability to get the job done in an environment that fosters collaboration instead of enduring the dullness of a conference room.
• Pick a place that has wireless or 3G/4G access or better.

Stuck with your box? Do this:

• Lose the table. How can you create a “new space” feel in your existing space?
• Invest in furniture that people want to sit in. Are the seats mobile so you can move them around your collaboration space?
• Fluorescent lights suck. Anytime you can bring in sunlight without blinding people, do it! If you're in interior building space, bring in additional lamps or lighting that uses natural-lighting-type lightbulbs, and turn off those overhead tubes of turmoil.
• Whether inside four walls or in an open environment, fast connectivity is critical. If people have to share, you don't want that slowing them down—including that LCD panel or screen on the wall that users can connect to wirelessly. Look for off-the-shelf solutions that offer easy Bluetooth or network connectivity to these screens. Use them! (Most laptops even come with it.)
• Bring in power plugs and strips; you can't have enough.
• Set up easy access to refreshments that are brain healthy; skip the typical junk food.
• Unless you're a family legal firm, take photos of old people off the walls. Yeah, motivational or team-work art pieces can be nice, but you need to change them often. Otherwise, they become just like those “lose weight” reminders on the fridge, simply blending in like bacon after you've seen them a dozen times. Better yet, get the Boring Meetings Suck calendar or posters at www.BoringMeetingsSuck.com. Now you're thinking!
• In appropriate weather, open the windows and enjoy the fresh air.
• When you can, keep the door of the room open (unless you're making a point about starting on time to the latecomers). A closed door makes many people feel trapped, and it may block out natural light from a window or other doorway.
• Have a lot of extra chairs? Take time to move them to the side or out of the room.
• How does the room smell? Place in the room a small bowl of potpourri or a candle that smells like peppermint or chocolate to stimulate the brain. A quick shot of air freshener can work wonders as well. Remember walking into a room after a horrid case of BO lingered from the people before you? You don't want to replicate that lackluster experience.
• Nobody likes sitting at a dirty conference table that has crusted cream cheese left over from the last group. Take time to wipe it off, and disinfect the table if you plan to have food.
• Keep in mind that space you use for an internal meeting doesn't have to be the same room you use for a client meeting. The client meeting room could have a more formal feel for sales presentations, while the internal one might be more functional for internal team and collaboration-type meetings.

Attendees SRDs

• Arrive at the room first and arrange it in the ways already noted. If the meeting host doesn't do any of this, you can.
• Door closed? No reason? Take a bathroom break or step out to take a call and leave the door open when you step back in.
• If Rocking Robyn sits next to you and won't stop bouncing back and forth (can you say annoying?), reach over and lock the chair recline lever. No need to say anything. Or you could coax her to get a chair that doesn't rock.

Mark Henson (www.Sparkspace.com) adds these suggestions:

Brandon Dupler (www.DuplerOffice.com) offers these ideas:

Meetings are inevitable. Because they're so prevalent, anyone and everyone involved in any kind of meeting needs to help plan and execute whatever meeting is at hand—including the after-meeting activities. Once everyone takes responsibility, then the meeting can actually accomplish what it's supposed to!