Try this easy happiness hack in your next meeting - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Try this easy happiness hack in your next meeting - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog When is your next meeting? Tomorrow? This afternoon? Or are you already late for your next meeting? We spend a lot of time in work meetings and they dont seem to make us very happy. So heres a simple tip you can try very easily:? Open your next meeting with a round where each person shares something positive. You can pick one of these questions and let everyone share: Name one thing you?ve accomplished since the last meeting that you?ve been proud of. Name a person who has helped you since the last meeting. Mention one thing you?re looking forward to at work in the coming week. What?s the funniest thing someone has told you in the last week? Mention something interesting you?ve learned in the last week. Don?t spend a lot of time on this, just give each participant about 30 seconds to share something positive. If the group is bigger than 10-12 people, let people share in pairs and then let 3 or 4 people share with the whole group so it doesnt take more than a few minutes. It really works wonders for a meeting. One person told me this after trying it out: Hi Alexander, I have been reading your work for a few days now, and I cannot get enough. We have 4 analysts on our team, who touch many if not all groups in our company. Our role often means our view is black and white in order to deliver results, which is often received in a bad light. So, I tried starting a meeting with something positive. It was like the Jedi mind trick for convincing others to lobby for our interests! My Sr Analyst was struggling to keep her jaw from dropping. No more than a simple ask of what is the funniest thing your kids have said to you lately. Everyone had a story, and we all laughed for a quick 2 minutes before getting to the agenda. Just wanted to say, ?Thank you,? All the best, -Grant And its not only fun, it will also make your meeting more effective as this experiment shows: Psychological experiments can be very devious, and this one was certainly no exception. The focus was meetings and the format was simple: Groups of people were asked to discuss and reach consensus on a contentious topic. Here?s the devious bit: Unbeknownst to the other participants one member of the group was an actor hired by the researchers. The actor was told to speak first in the discussions. In half the experiments he would say something positive while in the other half he would start by saying something critical. After that he simply participated in the discussion like the other group members. The experiment showed that when the first thing said in the meeting was positive, the discussion turned out more constructive, people listened more and were more likely to reach consensus. When the first statement was negative the mood became more hostile, people were more argumentative and consensus became less likely. The researchers concluded that the way a meeting starts has a large impact on the tone of the discussion and on whether or not the group will eventually reach consensus. Try it out and let me know how it works for you. Related articles Five weeeeird tips for great meetings Long meetings are a waste of time How constant busyness kills productivity and 5 ways to avoid it Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related