Date: September 20th.
Venue: Hyatt Regency
My client: Nationwide Insurance
Doing what I do (motivational speaker and corporate entertainer) I walk into sooo many unique situations and meeting setups. When hired to emcee the days events and provide the closing keynote for a group of 350 Software testing analysts for their test symposium you may not expect the most exciting environment. However, I commend Heather at Nationwide for doing just the opposite and offer her BORING MEETINGS SUCK award for September 2006 for her use of novelty and entertainment as the MSRD (Meeting Suckification Reduction Device).
Let me share just a quick synopsis of what she planned to make sure he meeting garnered the attention of her attendees and the senior staff. Having been the first time they hosted the test symposium, she wanted to create the right environment and surprise them right from the start. The program started like a rock concert – with a haze filled room and lights dancing around the stage with music kicking it up at 8:30 in the morn. I was introduced and took the stage first. I had 15 minutes to get them laughing and engaged (what I do best) and showed the audience a sealed prediction of what I thought 3 people wanted to gain from the day. We then picked 3 people by throwing frisbees into the audience – upon which they stood and mentioned what they hoped to gain. As wild as it seemed – I opened the plastic encasing that was hung in full view of the audience. Inside of which was a prediction written on a large piece of paper and sure enough I had successfully predicted the attendees names and what they hoped to achieve from the day! The audience was in awe as well as physically and emotionally engaged in whatever was about to happen next. (I guess this doesn’t generally happen in their morning meetings) I then introduced the CIO who spoke for a few minutes, following which we made the first keynote presenter *magically Appear* on stage using the theme words of the days conference. This all happened in the first 30 minutes!!
When your staff comes to your meeting, what do you do engage them from the start in order to create an atmosphere in which engaged interaction can take place, instead of the standard….here we go again in which they all sit back waiting for you to preach…..I mean present.
I am big into brain based learning – how and when the brain learns best. NEXT to Survival and emotions – novelty is the next BEST thing that engages the human brain and helps create long term memories of that occasion. How can you use novelty (trivia, jokes or photos perhaps) in your meeting that relate to your topic? What about having a story that builds one of the emotions with an analogy that related to your mission?
Face it – people want to be entertained. To use my favorite line from “The Fred Factor” by Mark Sanborn: Do your BEST work, while having the MOST Fun. For reference, Mark just published a new book that is also great: “You Don’t Need a Title to Be a Leader”
Go forth, find ways to use novelty productively and Bore No More!
Look forward to YOUR comments!
Jon Petz
Because Boring Meetings Suck !