Team Building Tips

Energy drinks dominate the market these days. Any convenience store in America has a cooler filled with cans of Red Bull, Rock Star, and Monster. People are energized and engaged, but, everyday, businesses are full of lethargic, boring, and unproductive meetings. Meetings are a necessity business life, but almost universally considered a 'necessary evil.' It doesn't have to be that way. Infuse energy into your meetings by eliminating these obstacles.

Disrespect - Blank faces. Arms crossed. Eyes turned away. All signal disengaged people in a meeting. When people feel disrespected, unappreciated and unaccepted, they shut down. They may show up for a meeting out of duty but not out of desire. Negative energy means negative results. The Care Works Family of Companies in Columbus, Ohio was voted one the best places to work in 2008 for central Ohio. CEO William Pfeiffer creates a culture of respect. When respect is shown to one another the results are greater cooperation and engagement.

Lack of focus - Minds are bound to wander in any meeting. Employees may be distracted by various things, personal or professional. It's inevitable. After all, we're human and we live in a culture where multitasking is a virtue. However, when employees are distracted and disengaged with the meeting the majority of the time, you have to wonder if it's really the meeting, not the people. To keep people focused, have a clear, concrete, stated objective for the meeting. The facilitator of the meeting needs to ask, "What exactly are we trying to accomplish in this meeting?" and then help everyone stay on that task. Don't let wandering minds, cell phones, and text messages distract from the overall objective. When everyone is aligned and focused in accomplishing the objective, the collective energy is focused, like laser beam, toward the objective.

Only a few are involved - In my workplace, Julie rarely, if ever, speaks in a meeting. It's not that she's not engaged. She is. But, meeting after meeting, we bypass any input she may have and go with the vocal majority...to our downfall. When everyone is involved in the conversation it's a lot more fun. As you know, some people think verbally and others internally. The problem is that we tend to give the most influence to those who speak first and most often. However, groups make better decisions when the input of each person on the team is considered. The diversity of opinion and feedback guards the group from making under informed decisions. In order to get everyone talking in a meeting, within the first five minutes you need to have everyone share something. It could be as mundane as, "Let's go around the table and share one success you've had today." Give the thinkers a minute to think of their answer and have everyone, literally everyone, share their answer. If, during the course of the meeting, you want feedback on an upcoming project or decision, make sure you give a moment or two for people to write down their thoughts before they share them with the group.

Bottom line - Energize any meeting by intentionally involving everyone, having a clear objective, and creating a culture of acceptance and respect.

Mike Weaver, is co-founder and facilitator with The Group Mind, http://thegroupmind.com We help organizations to create healthy and productive teams, and discover creative solutions to vexing problems. For more information about The Group Mind or Mike, follow the link above.