Why It Pays Off To Run Your Meetings Standing Up
How many meetings have you attended or run that were pretty much a waste of time? And how many times do they drag on much longer than they should? There’s an easy fix. Start running your meetings standing up.
Find a place where you can all stand around for your meeting. Remove all chairs and if you can find a tall table that makes it easier to stand on with paper or laptops all the better. If you can’t, just remove the chairs and roll with them.
Why does the meeting standing up? Because it’s slightly more uncomfortable than sitting down, particularly when your conference room has nice, cushy chairs. As a result, people will go through the meeting quicker and more focused. That not only makes the meeting more productive, it also leaves you a lot more time to take care of everything else on your list for the day.
Standing also gives you a feeling of purpose which aids in bumping up the productivity of your meeting. Not only will you be done faster, but your team may also just come up with better ideas.
Standing also leaves less room for distractions. Both you and the other people attending the meeting will be less likely to check their phones, answer emails, or write down notes on an unrelated topic during a stand-up meeting. With the chairs gone, there’s just no place to hide and with the meeting moving along quicker, there’s less of a temptation to start working on something unrelated.
And let’s not forget about the physical activity itself. I don’t have to tell you that standing is much better than sitting around. You can keep yourself and your team in better physical shape by holding your meetings standing up. It increases circulation and blood flow which also keeps everyone more alert and may just give you better input from your team members as well.
Give Stand-Up meetings a try and see how they are received by you and your team. Keep track of how long your meetings are taking right now and then compare that to the length of your standing meetings. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. On average your meetings should be 25 to 30% shorter and they may just be a lot more productive too.
Isn’t that combined with the fact that it’s better for everyone’s health and keeping your meeting focused and on target, worth giving this a try?
