Sivasailam Thiagarajan - 50 Activities to Kickstart Your Meetings

Sivasailam Thiagi Thiagarajan

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: Thiagarajan, Sivasailam, author.

Title: 50 activities to kickstart your meetings / Sivasailam Thiagarajan.

Other titles: Fifty activities to kickstart your meetings

Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020025358 (print) | LCCN 2020025359 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119690894 (hardback) | ISBN 9781119690931 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119690917 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Business meetings. | Management games.

Classification: LCC HF5734.5 .T47 2020 (print) | LCC HF5734.5 (ebook) | DDC 658.4/56dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020025358

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020025359

Cover Design: Wiley

Cover Image: Rakdee/Getty Images

To V. Thiagarajan
1938 to 2020
My oldest friend, who passed away just before I could give him a published copy of this book

Here's an activity based on the appreciative-inquiry techniques that build upon positive encounters and successful results.

The participants individually create a story about an engaging and effective meeting. They then pair up and share their stories. Later, they work in teams to identify the factors that contribute to these positive meetings.

To identify factors that contribute to engaging and effective meetings

Minimum: 4

Maximum: Any number

Best: 820

3050 minutes

Form teams. Divide participants into two or more teams of equal size, each with around two to five members.

Create stories about positive meetings. Ask each participant to work independently to come up with a story related to a positive meeting. This story should feature an engaging meeting that produced effective results. It could be a real or fictional narrative. Encourage the participants to keep their stories short.

Share stories. After a suitable pause, invite the participants to walk around the room and pair up with someone from a different team. The two participants should share their stories with each other. Ask the participants to listen carefully so they can recall details of the other person's story at a later time. Announce a four-minute time limit for this activity.

Return to the team. After each pair has shared their stories with one another, ask all the participants to return to their original teams. At this time, each participant will have his or her own story along with a story from someone else.

Discover common themes. Ask members of each team to think back on all the stories they heard and identify the common themes among them. Ask them to make a list of the factors that contribute to an engaging and effective meeting. Also encourage the team members to brainstorm techniques for increasing the probability of such positive meetings occuring.

Pair and share the conclusions. Ask each participant to pair up with another participant from a different team. Ask the participants to take turns sharing their list of ideas that contribute to positive meetings.

What's your story? Ask the participants to recall and apply the success factors from the stories they created. Encourage them to make the meeting the basis for a future success story.

What wishes do participants have for your training session? Which of these desires are shared by most of the participants?

Here's an opening activity that helps the participants generate a list of wishes, discuss them, and identify the highest-frequency wishes.

Each participant writes a personal wish for the training session. Later, the participants exchange these wishes and identify those that occur with the highest-frequency by comparing them two at a time.

To generate a set of wishes for the training session and explore their relative importance

Minimum: 10

Maximum: Any number

Best: 1530

15 minutes for the activity and 5 minutes for debriefing

• Blank index cards
• Pencil or pen

Identify two mediators. At the beginning of the activity, randomly select two participants to act as the mediators. Tell them that you will explain their task later.

Ask participants to come up with wishes. Invite participants to think of things they wish for the subsequent meeting. Provide examples as needed, such as these: