Are you planning on gathering together a large group of colleagues or collaborators? Maybe to work on a critical issue or develop your plans for the coming year?

Here are three things we think go towards making successful ‘mass meetings’:

1. Mix them up – make sure that people sit with and get to know those they haven’t met before or don’t spend much time with. Do this right from the start to create an atmosphere that encourages new conversations.

2. Move them around – always create space (both in terms of time and room layout) to get people out of their seats. This increases energy and gets people thinking differently. Try having them stand up to talk or work together.

3. Motivate them to do something different afterwards – focus people in on one thing they can change themselves that will help achieve your shared aims. Show them (or create together) a vision for what they can personally contribute and then help them work out the simple first steps to achieve this.

These 3Ms can work for smaller meetings too if you’d like to put some life back into tired gatherings.

Tags: energy, meetings, organisation