She said, “Stop Wasting Our Time With This Fluffiness!”

Last year, I wrote an article about Injecting Energy and Interaction into Your Next Meeting. The piece suggests seven ways to improve your meetings; the first idea was to start discussions with an icebreaker to engage participants. <blockquote> It’s a fact that finding ways to connect with meeting participants will yield better outcomes, but ‘ice breakers’ can feel like a waste of time when we’re overworked and in too many meetings. </blockquote> It’s important to ‘read the room’ and know the team's culture. I worked for Bank of America in the early 2000s when Ken Lewis was CEO. He made it a cultural norm that each meeting would start with reflecting on the company’s quote of the day. I got a lot of energy from those direction-setting pauses before we dove into the complex work of managing the integration of systems and people from the latest merger or acquisition. By the time I left that company in the mid-2000s, Lewis had departed, and the culture of one of our acquisitions came to dominate. The new way of working was all about business and work. As someone who values team connections, I have found unique ways to facilitate work and relationships. When “If you were on a deserted island, what would you bring?” is not appropriate, try exercises like these: <a href="https://medium.com/illuminations-mirror/she-said-stop-wasting-our-time-with-this-fluffiness-75c2c2d56094">Visit Now</a>