Why it’s worth being a little more creative in meetings

You don’t have to go way out there creative. Just a little can make a difference. 


🔶 For participants 

Are they participants - they’ll be doing, contributing and participating? Or are they attendees, an audience of spectators just watching and listening?

Creativity brings focus, stimulation to keep interest high and helps hold attention. 

Creativity makes memories. If you’re dealing with dry or complex matters, creativity anchors the key points. 

It brings content to life!


🔶 For you 

Creativity helps you stay interested. If it’s good for you, it’s likely to be good for them too. 

Moods and energy are infectious. If you’re not feelin’ it, they won’t be!

Creativity helps keep content fresh if it’s repetitive or the same topic as the last meeting. 

Variety alerts us. 


Many meetings are experiences of monotonous boredom. They benefit from injections of creativity. 

You don’t have to go for crazy creativity. A subtle or clever activity can build engagement, make swifter progress and help reach better outcomes. 

Are you using creativity in meetings?

Creative activities for online meetings

We often hear the tappity-tap of people working on emails while they’re online in a meeting.

It’s not their fault. 

They’re BORED!

They’ve had four of these boring meetings today. And you're dragging them through another one? YAWN!

We must make things more relevant, more creative - and it will most certainly be more effective.

If you’re inviting people to an online meeting to work, plan, contribute or decide, be sure you have a range of inspiring activities on hand. 

Giving people a question and putting them in breakout rooms is done - overdone! And it's just ONE activity. 

There are MANY OTHER WAYS to add connection, relevance and creativity to online meetings.

And it need not be ‘crazy creativity’ but relevant, smart and brilliant creativity!

I’ve spent years creating activities for meetings. And I’ve adapted, edited and morphed existing activities to make them more interesting ... and they work online too. 

Why does it resonate

When something resonates, it reverberates. The sound is prolonged and full. 

When something resonates for someone, it’s having that full reverberation with them, echoing, resounding, filling space. 

It’s like the sound in an opera house, specifically designed for reverberation. Or the drawn out ‘donnnnnnnggg’ of a bell. 

Resonance in humans is a pretty big deal!

‘This really resonated with me’, is a comment we’ll read or hear from people. They’re sharing the effect a message, story or experience had for them. 

Take notice when someone says that it resonated. It tells you about what’s important to them, what’s on their mind, and what they might need. 

It highlights what connected and reverberated for them. 

And it’s so important today... in times where we’ve been socially distanced, working remotely, and dealing with significant change. 

We can notice when something resonates for us, too. 

It means we’ve struck something - important, meaningful and valuable. 

The skill of generation

One of my previous job roles was in healthcare, leading the Community Relations team at Peninsula Health. 

A big part of the role was crafting information about public health issues for the community, media, employees and stakeholders. 

I was helping the radiology team communicate about CT and nuclear medicine scans. 

The head Radiologist said ‘Give me an X-ray or a scan and I can write a report about it, but you’ve just made something out of nothing’. 

There were a few facts to work with, but yes, I’d generated the rest. 

This is a skill; to be able to take an idea or a concept and to make sense of it, to generate an explanation, a story, a blog (or a LinkedIn post!)

The more regularly you generate, the better you can get at it. 

While you might be waiting for all the facts to come in before you create, or you’re following a formulaic template to create it quicker, the best generation comes when you step into the shoes of your audience. 

You answer the questions they might have and expand on information that addresses their concerns and curiosities. 

This isn’t just generation for the sake of content creation. 

It’s generation ... with great consideration. 

To be able to facilitate better is one of this decade's critical skills for leadership

These elegant, collaborative and engaging capabilities aren't just for trainers, presenters or coaches.

Executives, business analysts, project managers, middle level team and people leaders and those new to managing and leading experience the benefits of being able to:
🌕engage with a group or team,
🌕draw information from that group, and then
🌕help them collaborate to achieve an agreed outcome.


Leaders can do so much better to create the right environment and set up the processes that will help that team work together and collaborate.

But make no mistake, facilitation is not ‘soft’ work. 

Better Facilitation will help you balance:
- Achieving outcomes
- Boosting engagement
- Driving productivity
- Encouraging contribution.

Make meetings and workshops better, engagement and collaboration better ... and results and impacts better.