Spice Up Your Team Meeting

Looking for ways to bringenergy and enthusiasm toyour team meetings? Feelinglike your board meetings area little flat and boring? I ama big fan of “thinking outsidethe box”. Don’t just take forgranted that everyone thinksand works the same way. Bysimply changing up yourmeetings and trying somenew exercises, you might ignitea spark in your employeesthat you didn’t know wasthere. Oftentimes, groups or boards will meet every monthand yet know barely anything about each other. Taking thetime to get to know your group for a few minutes with theseactivities might spark new ideas and take your meetings to adeeper level. Even though these ideas might seem silly, theymay be just what your sleepy meetings need!

1. Take it Outside During nice weather, hold the meeting outside. Takeadvantage of the environment by changing the dress codeand adding refreshments. If possible, fire up the grill andhave a BBQ. There’s nothing quite like a poolside locationfor grinding through a budget meeting, or a meeting undera shaded tree for coming up with new ideas and buildingcreativity.

2. The Penny Game Break people into small groups at a volunteer organizationand give each person a penny. Ask them to introducethemselves to the group and talk about what they were doingduring the year on the coin.

3. Bread Winner Bring different kinds of breakfast breads to morningmeetings; rotate “catering” responsibilities to each memberof the group with the challenge to bring a new and differentkind of bread. Each month the group votes on the best“bread winner” of the month.

4. Act It Out After information is delivered (training, new policies,etc.), break the meeting into groups of five to eight peopleand challenge each small group to design a skit, song, rap, dance or other ways to recap part of the “learnings” from thesession.

6. Change Places Have every group member place their business card intoa bowl or container. Then, everyone draws a card other thantheir own. When generating or responding to ideas, participantsassume the persona of the person on their card andrespond from their (assumed) point of view. This is a greatway to “level the playing field” in the meeting, and also buildunderstanding for someone else’s field.

7. Human Spider Web In this game, people gather in circles of about six or seven.Everyone takes his or her right hand and grabs the righthand of someone who is approximately opposite to them,and then does the same with left hands. When everyone’sarms are intertwined, the group must figure out a way to untanglewithout letting go of any links. This activity helps participantsexercise their team–building skills and gets themthinking in a cooperative mindset.

8. Standing Room Only Remove all the chairs in the meeting room, and hold themeeting standing up. It will make the meeting shorter, guaranteed!

9. Common Ground This works best for small groups or for each small groupsitting together as a team (four to six learners). Give thegroup a specific time (perhaps five minutes) to write a list ofeverything they all have in common. Tell them to avoid theobvious (“we’re all taking this course”). When time is up, askeach group how many items they have listed. For fun, askthem to announce some of the most interesting items.

10. Guess Your Name During a cocktail party tape the name of a famous personon everyone’s back. As people socialize, they can ask forclues about their famous person. The first person to guessthe name on his or her back wins a prize.Special thanks to www.sideroad.com, Break the Ice, andwww.honolulu.edu.

Megan Alexander is a Correspondent for the national televisionshow “Inside Edition” and lives in New York City. Before this,she was the morning traffic reporter for KENS 5 and co–host of“Great Day SA”. Megan speaks across the country and loves workingwith youth. She sits on the NEO Board of NSIDE. Contactmalexander@cbs.com.