If you have been to one meeting, you have been to them all. Some are catered, but most are not. Some involve smart technologies, but many do not. They usually feature a speaker that bleats on about the latest important office topic, and the office — unless there is some form of entertainment — sits passively listening as they wait for the meeting’s end.
However, not all meetings are alike. In fact, facilitators and office managers can do a lot to prime the pump of a successful, and more importantly, engaging meeting. Premium meeting rooms and boardrooms can be the difference between an unproductive meeting and a purposeful one for both managers and employees.
Let’s take a closer look at why meeting room management is so important.
Tools for success
Whether meeting in one of the posh conference rooms in the iconic buildings that sit in one of Australia’s illustrious cities or in any one of the country’s coworking spaces, your meeting’s tone and tempo can change simply because of the tools available to the meeting’s organisers. Smart stations that allow speakers to project information onto a flat screen television or some other platform while having audio and internet capabilities make it possible for you to disseminate information to your audience easily. More significantly, your audience gets the benefit of being in a meeting where you can explain and illustrate any subject with ease.
These smart technologies are head and shoulders above earlier versions of screen and projector technologies that were awkward for facilitators to use. Many caused interruptions in the meeting and were not effective in helping impart information to the audience. In essence, modern technologies that allow for video-conferencing, internet capabilities, and audio and visual capabilities make the logistics of meetings effortless.
Structured conversations
Another reason meeting room management is essential is because when there is no structure to your meeting it becomes an unstructured conversation and not a meeting. Structured meetings and the conversations that are a part of them always have an agenda that relate to specific subjects to be covered versus a meeting where the conversations become tangential connections to a number of subjects. Furthermore, good facilitators engage the community before the meeting by asking for topics to place on the agenda, so that everything is covered in the meeting.
Finally, structured conversations also have time limits. Meetings that drag on forever are one of the main reasons many participants find them to be very tiring, especially after lunch. Moreover, when meetings have no time limits, then your audience might begin to feel their time is being taken for granted. Conversely, a meeting that begins promptly, reserves time for each topic, and tables questions until the end can be a more productive one and one well-received by participants.
Engaging meetings
The worst thing is to attend a meeting only to tune out of much of the conversation because, quite frankly, the subject is dull. While some would argue that meetings are not supposed to be dull because they are business, the point of the meeting is to impart information. However, if your audience forgets much of what you have imparted, the meeting is of little use or import.
To get your audience to be engaged to the topics, consider activity-based work that can get them to focus on the topics being discussed. For one, these activities can get them to move around, but these activities actually ask them to be engaged to actively participate in the conversation. Activities as small as icebreakers can loosen up the audience, so they at least pay attention to the facilitator.
Meeting the meeting room challenge
Meeting room management involves preparation. However, as a part of meeting management, managers should shift from the role of speaker to facilitator to engage their employees. In this way, the tools used in the meeting become more integral to imparting information to its participants, and attendees actually take something away from the meeting.
