5 Ways to Shake Up Your Next Meeting

Making fun of meetings is a favorite American pastime—and for good reason. The average employee will participate in 62 meetings this month, and 31 hours of that time is considered unproductive. And while there is a lot of talk about how unproductive meetings are, there isn't an equal amount of chatter about how to make them better. So let's try to change that by exploring five ways to tinker with your next meeting to make it more useful, decisive, and productive.

1. Make it a walking meeting

Sometimes you just need a change of scenery. The regular ol' conference room can be a bore, so for your next meeting, take it outside and do a walk around the block. It'll get the creative juices flowing by breaking up the doldrums of the regular workday.

2. Ask a weird question

How often do we have the same meetings with the same agenda items where we all go through the motions? Throw a wrench into that by asking a question that is tactful but will catch everyone off guard. For example, a marketing team might ask, "What aspects do you like about our top competitor?" Unexpected questions can stimulate unique conversations and thoughts that otherwise might not ever be brought up.

3. Shorten its length to an odd number of minutes

When is the last time you had a 17-minute meeting? Never? By setting a shorter, more unique meeting length, it'll ensure people stay attentive to the tasks at hand to stay on time. So, change your next 30-minute meetings to 23 minutes.

4.  Bring in an outsider

When you have a problem you've been working on for a long time, it can sometimes be helpful to bring in a fresh set of eyes (and ears). Find someone smart (and well liked), and bring them in to ask intelligent questions as you proceed through your normal meeting. If they are savvy, they'll know when to push and when not to. And, through their questions, it might bring out new viewpoints and opportunities.

5.  Cancel it

Or, here's an idea, just cancel your next meeting. Based on the stats cited earlier, there is about a 50 percent chance the attendees will consider it ''unproductive'' anyway. Instead, try to handle it through email, meeting collaboration software, or in an impromptu team video chat.

I hope this list gets your creative juices flowing on how to change up your next meeting. If you do, maybe others on your team will begin talking more frequently about how to make meetings better rather than just about how useless they can be.