Try These Clever Tricks To Make Your Meetings Way More Productive

It’s 8.59am, and you’re powerwalking to the meeting room on the other side of the office building, cup of coffee in one hand and a notebook in the other. Did you forget anything? What is the meeting about anyway? You take the lift and arrive just in the nick of time, taking your usual seat around the large conference table, prepared to endure another long and probably draggy meeting that could have been an email.

Sounds familiar? If your meetings aren’t as fruitful as they should be, perhaps it’s time to think out of the box. We pick the brains of events expert and entrepreneur Joewin Tan, the CEO of Huone Singapore, an events hotel that rents out themed meeting and events rooms to corporates, about simple but effective ways to boost productivity at meetings.

Huone (pronounced “hwo-ney“) means “room” in Finnish, and first started in Helsinki before Joewin brought it to Singapore shores in 2017. The sprawling space conveniently located in Clarke Quay boasts 10 unique and inspirational themed rooms and one “igloo”, a callback to the company’s Finnish roots. They’re a stark contrast to the typical templated board rooms, meeting rooms and convention centres in hotels and expos. At Huone, you can sit on swing chairs, lie on bean bags or feel like you’re in a Nordic cabin for a change.

“A lot of meetings are done in a way that’s disorganised and unproductive, which means lots of man hours are wasted on bad meetings,” shares Joewin, who also started event agency Linear Dots Production in 2012.

Here, she shares five key ways to make your meetings way more productive:

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Try These Clever Tricks To Make Your Meetings Way More Productive

Tip 1: Set a random meeting time

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In Singapore, lateness tends to be the norm. Whether because of bad traffic or train breakdowns, or just because we’re not very good planners, not starting meetings on time is a very bad habit. “One tip to make sure you start on time is to set the meeting time at an odd timing. So instead of saying the meeting starts at 8am, say it’ll start at 8:07,” Joewin shares. “The tendency of people reaching on time is higher.”

“According to research, people will process that they have to reach at 8, even though the stipulated time is 8:07, so then they tend to be on time. I’ve tried it on my team and it works! I’ve done a few meetings at 8 or 9am and we had a few latecomers, but when I set the meeting at 9:06 or 9:08, most of them are on time.”

Photo: Unsplash

Tip 2: Send out the agenda in advance

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Joewin reveals this is a vital thing that people always seem to forget, not realising that this advance prep work will make the meeting so much more effective and focused. “Usually, when agendas aren’t sent in advance, people tend to beat about the bush and talk for the sake of talking because they haven’t really thought through the different key points of the meeting.”

She recommends sending the agenda one to two days in advance if possible, to give people some time to sit on it and come prepared. “It gives people time to look through the material and think of questions to ask, or even come up with suggestions to bring to the meeting,” she shares. “This is especially good for board meetings, where many of the members are very busy people, so you want to make sure you give ample time.”

It also does well to consider how much time to allocate for each portion of the meeting. “Always allocate enough time for the most important agenda,” Joewin suggests.

Photo: Huone

Tip 3: Create the right environment

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When you think of companies like Google, Facebook and Netflix, you’ll probably feel a little jealous of their beautiful offices. “There’s a reason why people are moving away from cubicles and going for the open-desk concept,” Joewin shares. “Big companies like Google invest so much in their ambiance because they know their people can thrive in that kind of environment. The way the office space is designed, especially with co-working spaces, actually encourages people to be a lot more creative, and encourages collaboration.”

Asian culture tends to more hierarchical, Joewin points out. “We tend to think that the boss’s idea is always the best, even if there’s something better. So during meetings, if the bosses are always leading it, subordinates tend not to want to share their ideas.”

That’s why working in a creatively-designed space can increase productivity, as it provides the right environment for people to open up. “Creative spaces allow people to come out of their shell, as they kind of put down their barriers or defence walls and start to feel like ‘It’s okay for me to share’,” Joewin says.

Photo: Huone

Tip 4: Daylight boosts concentration

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“Daylight helps people concentrate better,” Joewin says. It’s a known fact that natural light is good for you, and studies have been done which show that students can retain information a lot better when taught in classrooms that have plenty of windows. It’s also why many modern skyscrapers are built with full glass windows!

Photo: Huone

Tip 5: Move your meetings out of the office

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“Whenever you do a meeting in your own office, it’s very often interrupted – whether by someone wanting to get a signature or take a phone call, or ask the boss for something,” Joewin notes. “You may also always be on your phone or reading emails.”

These big distractions lower productivity, as your mind cannot be in two places at once, she shares. “The reality of multitasking – even though they say women are very good at it – is that we have to divide our attention spans to two or three different tasks at once, and that means each task isn’t done well.”

Bringing your meeting out of the office to a space immediately solves the problem of office-side distractions, and if your new meeting space has good ambiance, food and other amenities, you’ll have happier co-workers and a much more productive meeting.

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Photo: Huone

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