Recent research, reported in The Times, states that most people who attend meetings believe that they are uninspiring and uninvolving; that they would be more productive at their desks and that, on the whole, one person speaks too much.

Snoozefest

Apparently, one in three workers has seen a colleague fall asleep in a meeting because the event was boring and failed to encourage ideas and 9% of people had the courage to admit that they had fallen asleep themselves.

Daydreaming

10% have sat through a presentatiuon so dull that they invented a reason to leave. A third spent up to half the meeting with their minds adrift, while one in 8 admitted they were day dreaming most of the time.

Set up to fail

20% of people said they were ignored during meetings. Only a quarter of people had been trained to run meetings.

What to do?

A majority of people thought that everyone should be involved and that meetings should be set up to allow everyone to contribute.

A better way

People Positive is celebrating 25 years of running meetings, giving presentations and facilitating conferences. We recognise the findings of the research commissioned by Sharp Europe and have successfully helped many organisations avoid the pitfalls mentioned.

Time is a limited resource and its effective use gives commercial and technical advantage. Wasting people’s time in unproductive and boring meetings is poor practice and a squandering of two main resources that organisations have – time and money, by treating a third resource, people, as if they are incidental to the business.

It is neither value for money nor culturally acceptable to bring in a third party to run regular meetings.

It is good sense to ensure that the people running meetings are well-equipped to do so and they are supported by the organisation in adopting an involving and interactive approach.

Feedback

Some of the feedback from recent meetings run by People Positive includes:

  • “An excellent and engaging presenter who imparted enthusiasm and energy into the subject and brought it to life.”
  • “No powerpoint! Active meeting encouraging participation, great presentation / delivery!”
  • “I thought the “pin boards” were a good unusual way to put the material to us – so much better than a PowerPoint (which would have sent us to sleep).”
  • “Well presented, wasn’t bored or uninterested. Meeting was enjoyable, discussion was encouraged. Overall excellently paced, interactive and to the point.”

We will put up a list of good practice, drawn from our experience over various industry sectors and interactions with people on the website.

In the meantime if  you would like us to share our experience and give advice on best practice in running meetings, engaging people and promoting collaborative working, please contact Andrew or Tony.