How do you fix a boring meeting?

Here are five tips that will likely make you roll your eyes. The first one is my favorite.

Okay, here’s a question: How often do you attend a boring meeting? I’m assuming the answer is, “When do I not?” Now, I’ve got a more interesting question for you: How often do you attend a meeting where you can really say you enjoyed yourself?

I ask these two questions to a lot of people every year. The answers are usually pretty similar. Here’s what I find interesting. When I ask about the boring meetings, the response is usually vague about what made it boring. However, when I ask about a fun meeting, the response is usually very specific. People will typically single out a specific meeting that was fun and a specific detail about why the meeting was fun. But most importantly, they can tell me specifics on what was talked about during that meeting.

Fun meetings just make a bigger impact!

What Are Some Things You Can Do?

Here are a few things I’ve taken from years of doing magic at corporate events. All of these are things I’ve seen and they really work.

1. Remove the table…and the chairs:

Once I performed for a group of people that were having a board meeting. I walked into the room and every single person in the room was standing. That was the highest energy level I’ve ever seen in a meeting to this day. I asked the head of the company why they stand up for meetings. His response was, “There’s a lot more interaction and we’ve gotten our best ideas from meetings done this way.” Yeah, that’s worth this whole article.

Recently, a past client (corporate event planner) was looking for a magician in Raleigh, NC, and in the end, brought me in to perform for this group. Looked like the typical, unassuming day conference at a typical rented out corporate conference space. It turned out to be one of the most energetic and excited groups of people I had ever seen…half standing, half sitting. Punchline…it was one of the biggest and most well known corporations in the world.

2. Gimme a Break!

Taking a break every hour or even half hour can be a great recharge. Doesn’t have to be long. Two minutes just to stretch and refill the coffee can be a great break in the action.

3. That screen displays more than PowerPoint

During the breaks, why not play a short video of something funny or even inspiring? Also, if you show something funny, why not have it being something related to your topic. If you’re talking about sales, go to YouTube and type in “Worst Sales Call.” Even if the video you find is completely fake, it still stays on topic and people will get a great laugh out of it.

And as much as I hate to say it, but we live in a world of AI. Have some funny pictures created of your employees. Maybe as the faces of Mount Rushmore or something just as ridiculous. These absurdities can act as enormous punctuation marks of the meeting and people can associate things they’ve heard with what they’ve seen.

4. Positive Reinforcement

Make sure there are more positive points in a meeting than negative. I love what the book How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie says. To paraphrase, it says that when you give a criticism, start with a compliment first. It makes the criticism easier for the person to hear.

5. Entertainment

Yes! Bringing in an entertainer for 30 minutes can drastically change a meeting for the better. Trust me, I’m brought in to do corporate meeting entertainment for major companies all over the country. There’s nothing like having someone come in and connect with your employees in a way that’s different from anything they’ve experienced. Some performers can also integrate your message. I do interactive custom keynotes, and sometimes can get through to people faster in two minutes than a PowerPoint presentation can do in two hours.

Quick Example

I recently did a Magic Show in Asheville, NC for a company’s annual retreat. They picked a beautiful destination, but it was nonstop meetings. Literally, one boring meeting after another, from sunup to sundown. They had me there to close out the night. I did my stage show which is a funny, interactive magic show. When I got back to the hotel where most of the attendees were staying, I started to get on the elevator to go to my room and heard my name from across the lobby. It started with a few people, turning into around 20…then doubling from there. People just wanted to thank me for the show. “You really made this day so much better,” was a sentence I heard at least a dozen times.

Don’t be afraid to try something different at your next meeting. You might be surprised how well received it is.