Vibrancy. What a great word. “Vibrant Meetings” is this an oxymoron? Can a meeting be vibrant?
What is Vibrancy? Vibrancy means “full of energy and life; brightness of color and resonance of sound.”
How can you make your meetings vibrant?
Get up. Meetings where no one moves out of their chair are boring. Kanban boards get people up and interacting with the board during status-type meetings. Whiteboard discussions are great during solutioning meetings. Just get up out of your chair. Neuroscience shows that body movement enhances brain function and syncs thinking in groups of people.
Check in. There’s a process called “meeting check in: mad, sad, glad” where people go around the room and check in with their current emotion. There’s no big discussion, just a simple “I’m glad and I’m in.” This quick, simple process creates space for a range of emotions to enter the meeting. Vibrancy means that we need to broaden our array of acceptable emotions. Check ins are a great place to start.
Disagree! I’ve been to so many meetings were everyone was prepped ahead of time to agree. “We wouldn’t want to disagree in the meeting,” they say. Why not!? That’s what the meeting is for! Otherwise why are we having it? And meetings where everyone agrees are boring, let some sparks fly. The other problems with the pre-agree is that you’ve had a series of one-on-one agreements but the group never discussed anything as a team. What often happens is either a) disagreements come out in the meeting anyway or b) good ideas aren’t given a chance to surface.
Joke a little. When teams have trust, they can joke around more freely. Feeling don’t get hurt as easily because they trust each other for positive intent, and team members are not worried about looking professional.
Have you been in vibrant meetings? Let us know!
