Clean up your (meeting) room!

Last week I ran a skills workshop in an organisation's meeting room. 

I could tell it was a meeting room because there was a sign on the door that said "Meeting Room". 

But if I'd been guided in there with my eyes closed and then opened my eyes, this room could have easliy doubled for the "Storage Room".

This meeting room was a dumping ground for old broken chairs, additional surplus chairs, trolleys, boxes of supplies, more chairs, some broken tables, filing cabinets, storage cupboards and other 'junk'. 

The environment this created was .... cluttering. 

I spent time before the session, clearing some breathing space, sectioning off an area and making sure the 'working space' was separate from the 'storage space'. There wasn't alot I could do about the 'rubbish space'. 

The feedback was that it was the best meeting room they'd seen and worked in. 

When space is at a premium, it's understandable that any sort of space begins to get taken over. 

But the cost on your communication, collaboration, productivity and performance suffers, particularly when you can't get things done swiftly or cleanly because the environment is polluted. 

Clean up your (meeting) room. And if you need half of it for a storeroom, then section it off so that the roles and purposes of those spaces are clear. 

How often do you hear interior designers on lifestyle shows talk about 'zones' for living. Retailers do it too. They're looking for ways to create an environment that will give you a positive reaction... not a reminder from your mum that you need to clean up your room!

So here's a reminder from me.... clean up your meeting room. It's costing you so much more than a bit of cluttered floor space.