The outcome of your last meeting was... another meeting?
Are you part of the corporate-culture-meeting-club?
You’ve been there, in the conference room, with only two minutes left of the meeting. You are nowhere near a conclusion on the topic. People keep arguing just to make their point loud and clear for the third time.
You take a deep breath, and you hear yourself say the forbidden words:
“I’ll schedule another meeting on this topic.”
Everyone leaves the room a bit unsatisfied. Not too much, though—they’re all used to it. After all, this is what we do for work.
It’s time for a change.
If the outcome of your last meeting was to schedule another meeting, beware. You are close to falling into the rabbit hole of the corporate-culture-meeting-club.
Don’t join.
There are much better clubs out there.
More productive ones.
More fun ones.
More engaging and democratic ones.
Look. We have tons of meetings. Many are okay. Many are neither value creating nor fun.
So, what should we do instead, you ask?
Well, first you need to ask yourself if you are part of the problem.
Hard question, I know.
Are the meetings you call always:
Great?
Fun?
Productive?
Efficient?
Democratic?
Engaging?
Documented?
Summed up into actions?
Okay, stop reading if you ticked all of those off. You are good to go—I have no point to make. Go schedule your meeting.
If not:
I’m sorry to say this, but you are part of the problem. No worries, we all are.
No hard feelings.
But this is something we can help each other with.
To make work more fun.
Productive.
And all of the other things I just listed above:
My sales pitch is short.
Run a workshop instead.
My very professional gut feeling is that 70% of all meetings could be replaced by workshops instead.
Meetings are usually us talking about work. A good workshop is the work.
If done right, a workshop gives you:
Instant Output: You create actual value, instead of just discussing opinions.
Automatic Docs: The work documents itself in real-time.
Democracy: They are democratic and collaborative by design.
More fun: They are much more enjoyable and build genuine team spirit.
Action points: maybe most important - people know what to do right away.
So next time you are about to schedule a meeting series, or realize that the outcome of your last meeting was to schedule a new one:
Ask yourself: could this meeting be better served in the format of a workshop?
If no—well, not everything should be turned into a workshop. But I’m glad you asked yourself.
If yes—go for it!
If maybe—go for it anyway. I can assure you it will be more fun. And less of a corporate rabbit hole.
That’s all.
Keep shipping,
Gunnar
As an evangelist of workshops, I’d be happy if this article turned just one meeting into a workshop instead.
It would make my day! Please let me know if it did.
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About the Author
Hi there,
I’m Gunnar Carlén.
I’m a UX designer
turned Product Manager
turned CX Strategist,
I talk about how to solve problems and share ideas on how to build stuff that people care about, and also how to have fun while doing it.