Workshops don’t need to be boring!

I was in a series of day-long workshops earlier last week. These were intense affairs, with about 10-15 people attending in person, and a few folks dialed into the call. The meetings ran non-stop for 7-9 hours with minimal breaks for breakfast, lunch and coffee. In one case, the meeting started at 7am (and in a time-zone three hours BEFORE mine…which means it’s 4am in my body-clock). As the day dragged on, I could see that people were wearing thin, drifting away into daydreamland, losing track of what is going on. Some checked out of the meeting mentally, while others would display a remarkable awakening in the middle of someone else’s piece, speak their piece, and then go back into zombie-land. Workshop design needs a rethink. That’s where my doodle comes in.

The days-long-workshop is one of the evils of the modern workplace. These tend to be somber affairs, and mostly bore the heck out of the attendees. Given how useless these meetings tend to be, it’s a surprise that people continue to organize them in the first place. Maybe they make the drudgery of daily work seem lees boring!

It doesn’t have to be that way. These meetings can be made to come alive through a series of small changes. Spend sometime scanning the note below. I’ll be back with more details in my follow on post.