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Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeart Radio.
Good morning.
This is Laura.
Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is to inject moments of delight into your meetings.
These moments can spark engagement and creativity and give people something positive to remember about their time together.
Frankly, anything that makes meetings better is a big win in my book.
Today's tip comes from my interview with Rebecca Hines for this podcast.
Rebecca is an expert on organizational behavior and has a special interest in meetings.
In our conversation, Rebecca recommended injecting at least one moment of delight into every meeting, even if it's just a five-second moment.
Delight is this very interesting combination of joy and surprise, she said.
The surprise makes people think differently, as she put it, and remember these moments of delight.
Now you may be wondering exactly how you were supposed to squeeze delight into your already packed agenda and how you were supposed to come up with something delightful when the meeting itself might be serious business.
But this really doesn't have to be so hard.
For instance, Rebecca suggested shout outs and what she called peer-to-peer recognition, which she said is especially powerful.
So you praise John for the insightful research he did for your last project.
Or, even better, Marie praises John for his research because it made the presentation she gave about the project so much better.
Rebecca also suggested bringing a snack to share, ideally something that is personally significant.
If your brainstorming sessions in college were fueled by Doritos, bring them for a brainstorming session at work and explain that they led To your best ideas.
If your mom always made rice crispy treats on the first day of school, bring them for the kickoff meeting for a big project and explain why.
If you are worried about the junk food factor, well, snacks can be healthy too.
Like fresh strawberries to kick off your summer planning season.
I'd be happy to be at that meeting.
When you're considering how to bring in delight, keep in mind that you're aiming to leave a lasting positive impression, as Rebecca put it.
I love this idea.
Sometimes meetings are dull, sometimes they are intense, but rarely are they delightful.
Intentionally building in a moment of delight seems like a great way to add a little positivity and energy to your meetings.
It's also completely doable.
Even a simple moment could make a big difference.
So the next time you are responsible for planning or leading a meeting, consider where you could add some delight.
In addition to Rebecca's suggestions of shout outs and significant snacks, here are some other ideas.
In your presentation you might use photos, art or other images that speak to the topic of the meeting.
PowerPoint isn't just for text.
A good cartoon could make the meeting a little lighter.
As an icebreaker at the beginning of the meeting, invite the participants to share something personally significant that connects to your topic.
For instance, if you're leading a parents association leadership team meeting for an elementary school, you could ask everyone to share a memory of delight or belonging from their own elementary school years.
You can also add delight to a meeting through intentional seating.
In lieu of place cards, have something personally significant to your attendees at each seat so that people can find their places and then explain to the group how they knew that seat was theirs.
For example, you could have a coloring book page of a chicken for someone who keeps chickens, a first place ribbon for the person who got first place in your company's bake-off last year, a cat sticker for the cat lover in your group, and so forth.
Now, obviously, this takes time.
And I know a lot of people are just running from one meeting to another.
But in general, in life, it's better to have Fewer meetings, but better ones.
And Rebecca notes that if you are trying to have fewer meetings, you want the meetings you do have to be deeply human.
Moments of delight contribute to that and just might add energy and creativity to the mix, too.
If you try adding moments of delight to your meetings, I'd love to hear how you do it.
You can reach me at Laura at LauraVanderkam.com.
In the meantime, this is Laura.
Thanks for listening.
And here's to making the most of our time.
Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
If you've got questions, ideas or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura Vanderkam dot com.
Before Breakfast is a production of I Heart Media.
For more podcasts from iHeart Media, please visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Guaranteed human.
