Standing room only: How to make physical meetings more productive

Prolog: Monday morning, 9 AM

Aahh. The joys of another meeting. Sit down, sip your coffee, snag the good cookie/donut, relax and let your mind drift...just like most of the other participants.

Situation: Meetings are necessary, but can be time wasters

In corporate life, meetings take up much of our time, and the 2019 Doodle study estimates that two-thirds of all meetings are unnecessary or a waste of time. On the other hand, meetings are critical for passing on information, making sure all understand the situation or tasks and getting personal commitment.

Option: Standing meetings

Try out meetings in which the participants don‘t sit, but stand in a (semi-) circle as a loose group around the meeting organizer. This actually gets meetings started / finished faster and allows to focus on most important information sharing & feedback. This meeting style should run for max 30 minutes.

Pros: more flexibility (don’t always need a meeting room), quicker meeting time, gets people into upright positions (away from sitting), higher focus of participants, less formal.

Cons: overhead presenting more difficult, need to sit down if meeting runs longer, doesn‘t work well with larger groups or dial-in participants.

Take-away: Try using 30 minutes standing meetings as an addition to regular meetings for an informal sharing of information.

© John Guenther Consulting 2019

John Guenther Consulting helps international companies reach their marketing business goals through interim assignments in leadership and project management roles. John is a seasoned marketing executive with 25 years of marketing & sales experience in global roles and diverse industries. His focus is on B2B marketing, transformation of marketing organizations, optimization of marketing & sales cooperation, brand management and agile leadership of complex marketing projects. Learn more at www.john-guenther-consulting.de.

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