Meeting Motivation

It’s the time of year to prep your staff for the all-important holiday season. Do your staff meetings motivate your employees, or are they a dull waste of time? At MyBusinessMag.com, Karen Haywood Queen shares ideas on how to make your meetings matter.

Use these meeting tips to most successfully prepare staff for holiday selling season:

• Encouraging Participation: If you want discussion, Queen advises advanced warning. Let yoResponsible_blogur staff know what you’d like to discuss in advance (perhaps a formal agenda). Give them time to process it, so they are more likely to contribute.
• Celebrating Results: Use meetings as an opportunity to spotlight those employees who are making a difference.
• Staying on Task: Stick to the agenda by promising personal attention after the meeting for staff who need it.
• Eating Outside the (Doughnut) Box: Queen writes how one company has employees take turns bringing food to their Monday morning meeting.
• Making it Fun and Creative: Come up with games that you can relate to your business. For instance, one company had a “Family Feud” type game that divided staff into teams and quizzed them on topics directly related to the services they offer. How about a game of Jewelry Pictionary?
• Extra Tip: The Wall Street Journal recently profiled NYC-based game developer Arkadium, which has spiced up its weekly meetings by offering a sense of surprise. One week the staff conference table became a ping-pong table, another week there was an egg-eating competition. A revolving host runs the meeting each week and sets the creative agenda (that also includes staff presentations).