Revolutionize Your Next Meeting

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Tom Hansen said it best, Most Meetings Suck!  Hopefully we’re not the blokes who lead such outmoded gatherings though. Imagine the possibilities for transformative growth in meetings with vibrant round-tables that we and our peers deserve.

What if we could rev up innovation, by changing one boring practice or stomping out a hapless habit at our next meeting?  See 10 top questions discussed on my invited international ASTD Video, and discover how to stoke brilliance in place of boredom at our next meeting.

Here’s the skinny in mental keys to transform a boring meeting?

Expect transformational tips at  ASTD Video on Meetings, originally aired on October 11th and now available free.

Revolutionize Meetings

A glance at takeaway tactics related to sidestepping hopeless habits that hold us back.

1. What one tactic moves a meeting from boring banter into possibility planning?

2. What’s going on inside Tom Hansen’s brain, when he stated that most meetings suck?

3. What hot-as-a-pistol trigger could fire our next meeting?

4. How can an ordinary gathering leapfrog over convention and uncover unlikely genius?

5. Since people retain only 5 % only of what’s heard, meetings should …?

6. How will our next meeting bring out bullies or brainiacs, but not empower both?

7. How could our meeting fuel brain chemicals for creativity while avoiding toxins that dose novelty?

8. How can our meetings avoid death by PowerPoint that short-circuits intrapersonal IQ?

9. How could our meeting ramp up the bottom line by prompting both sides of our brains?

10. How does a brain literally reconfigure  itself during a dull or a dynamic meeting?

View ASTD’s Free Video for your Meeting Revolution – and add twitter responses for a lively exchange that builds better habits.   Together we’ll build neuro solutions as doable realities that benefit our entire organization.

Which one of these brain-friendly tactics will turn our next meeting from wasted time to a wonderful opportunity where all benefit?

See innovative and practical strategies here that bring meetings alive where we work.

Ask the lecturer in this video and he will say he engages listeners.  He might even go on to suggest today’s audiences expect too much and give too little. Ask listeners there also and they may reject the fact we learn through lectures in favor of supporting instead these 100 reasons to run hard from lectures!

Have you considered lately how …

Not surprisingly, research backs Hansen’s claims and then some! Let’s consider 5 reflections before we plan or attend the next meeting.  Then bolt from everything that resembles the traps we got glued into by Tom Hansen characters – who OWN the meeting.

5 Brain Considerations that Should Cancel all Meetings as We Know and Endure Them:

1. Speakers bore us and for reasons that make sense! Few speakers realize that less than 5% of what listeners hear, actually sticks. That’s according to research from National Training Lab and quoted by Geoff Petty in Teaching Today. Makes sense, wouldn’t you agree? Let’s face it – whenever one person drones on, every other brain in the room wastes time, as the entire group tosses talent out the window. Far better to grow brain cells for the meeting’s agenda by engaging multiple intelligences that come with any gathering. The meeting then moves from boredom survival to ramp up IQ for applying results.

2. People dominate or worse, they  bully us at meetings – with a kind of tone that shuts out valuable opposing views. Have you seen it happen?  In one blow, tone can kill initiatives and stomp out the best ideas from those who differ. No wonder participants head for hidden seats in the back, where they can at least text a friend or check email.  It seems better to most, than enduring words or abiding a bully’s body language that promises surefire demise of any healthy exchanges.

3. PowerPoint short circuits brainpower in most groups, so that people in the meeting tend to zone out long before key points are made.  Some slip into sleep mode, while others seethe silently, and a few  pretend to be fixated on the PowerPoint bells and whistles.  Initially the colors and frames may act as mild pain killers, but not much more. Similar to monologues slides and graphs, can power down a groups’ brains and rock folks to sleep.

4. Lack of connections between what’s spoken at meetings, and what’s experienced by participants, come when leaders live myths about the human brain. Reality connects to people’s brainpower by unleashing dynamic ability to transform stuff spoken in meetings into mutual benefits at work. Harmful myths such as venting gets things off one’s chest, prevent people from seeing how venting creates toxic neuron pathways for more venting. Or myths about cynicism that disguises for humor and adds conflict. Or that disagreement is a bad thing, simply because opposing ideas are not facilitated well. Even myths about the fact that what’s good for men is good for women, disregard the wonderful neuro-discoveries for both genders and can leave some people shut out mentally.

5. Inability of leaders to facilitate so thoughtful people are silenced, rather than helpful. Effective leaders facilitate more brainpower by asking 2-footed questions, rather than talking at people. They target improvements in briefly stated goals that generate new neuron pathways to higher peaks. They move change along through multiple intelligence challenges. And they facilitate reflections that stoke create innovation to reach the next levels, in ways that override the brain’s default for ruts.

What could your next meeting do differently to open opportunities for more brainpower from intelligent participants?

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LINKS TO WEBER’S BOOKS AND MATERIALS TO GROW EMOTIONALLY & MENTALLY HEALTHY

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The Teen’s Growth Mindset Workbook – paperback

Growth Mindset Interactive Materials at TPT

Mita (Growth Mindset) Strategies in Class and Beyond

Student Assessment that Works – a Practical Approach

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