How to Make Meetings and Events More Engaging

Work-related meetings and events often get a bad rap, leading many industry watchers to label them as costly and unproductive time sucks that drain productivity. However, in-person and virtual get-togethers still remain a critically-important way to build trust, teamwork, and organizational culture, and, as an educational tool, can provide crucial insights in a fast-changing business environment. As my team and I point out in the new book FUN AT WORK™, the key to finding greater success with meeting and event programs is simply to take a more creative and engaging approach to how you design every gathering.

For example, it’s important to remember that in today’s post-pandemic age of constant uncertainty and disruption, working professionals’ attention span and supply of free time is shrinking. Likewise, they need money-, effort-, and time-saving information on a host of new and emerging trends ASAP that’s delivered in as approachable and user-friendly a format as possible. But as a futurist and keynote speaker who’s given hundreds of talks for over 1,500 businesses of every size and industry, I’ve noticed a counterintuitive trend lately. Meeting programs and presentations are often becoming longer and more complex, and information harder to unpack, even as audiences are increasingly tuning programs out and the pace of change continues to accelerate.

Thankfully, a few simple changes in approach can help you improve any meeting. Below, you’ll find several ways to spice up any get-together, boost employee enthusiasm and engagement, and fast-track learning and retention by redesigning small- or large-group gatherings to be more compelling. All can help you better educate, upskill, and prepare your workforce for whatever comes tomorrow.

Small Group Meetings and Events

You can make the most of small group meetings by creating more opportunities for conversation, teamwork, and hands-on interaction. Likewise, it’s important to create an environment of trust and participation where everyone feels comfortable speaking up and taking action. Thankfully, a few simple shifts in design and layout can help you get attendees more involved… and prompt them to think more critically and deeply about any given topic. For example:

• Block out a portion of each gathering for brainstorming and ideation, and listen specifically to younger hires, co-workers from diverse backgrounds, and leaders with varying perspectives from different departments.
• Plan regular sessions that invite customers, partners, or industry thought leaders from outside the business to stop in and share their thoughts with your company.
• Purposefully switch up your surroundings and hold walking meetings or gatherings at coffee shops, on park benches, or at local watering holes to spark more creativity and imagination.
• Change your stance by standing, sitting, or even engaging in a brisk walk with colleagues while engaging in discussion, as body posture can affect moods and levels of engagement.
• Start meetings with casual icebreakers that prompt greater empathy, trust, and participation, such as asking all attendees what they’re doing this weekend, who their favorite band is, or what movies they’re looking forward to seeing.
• Invite surprise guests to drop in, either in-person or via videoconference, to share a few words and their thoughts on trending topics or items on your business agenda.
• Create group activities that invite colleagues to work together towards accomplishing shared goals that specifically expose workers from different seniority levels, areas of expertise, and cultural backgrounds to fresh perspectives, opinions, and problem-solving approaches.

Conferences, Trade Shows, and Corporate Events

Larger gatherings can also benefit significantly from a change in format, presentation, and planning. The key is simply to take what might otherwise be predictable and dry sessions and transform them into shorter, more dynamic, and engaging programs that hold the potential to surprise and delight. For instance: Using a new training and education method we call POP FUTURE™, you can not only make future trends and new business concepts simpler, you can also reimagine the shape of every meeting to make it a must-see – and ensure that attendees will be talking about it for months to come. Some simple and straightforward ways to apply new approaches and techniques to your programs include:

1. Custom Learning Tracks and Micro-Conferences

Designate a 1.5-3 hour block of time within the context of a larger internal gathering or event to run a miniature conference on a major trending theme (the future of work, artificial intelligence, etc.). Rather than devote it to one keynote or workshop presentation, split the program into a series of concurrently-running tracks consisting of 15- to 20-minute learning sessions given by different presenters. Each should explore the larger theme through the lens of surrounding, but related topics, e.g. deep learning, cryptocurrency, the Metaverse… whatever’s most pressing and pertinent to you audience. As an added bonus, you might even offer certificates, prizes, or opportunities for employee recognition as a reward for completing these programs.

2. Strategy Planning Exercises

Challenge your peers to dynamically problem-solve, test innovative strategies, and adapt their thinking in real-time with role-playing exercises grounded in tackling real-world scenarios. For example, you might give meeting attendees 30-60 minutes to discuss how they might adapt to unexpected shortages of workers, new supply chain hiccups, or various cybersecurity- or data privacy-related incidents. Doing so can leave your company and colleagues better prepared (and equipped with back-up plans) to greet tomorrow’s potential disruptors today.

3. Rapid-Fire Innovation Challenges

Assemble groups of 4-6 staffers of varying experience levels and backgrounds who hail from different organizational functions and roles, then ask them to answer a running series of questions in brief, 5- to 10- minute bursts. Sample queries to put to them might include: which emerging trends, technologies, and events most stand to influence the shape of or impact your firm going forward? What strategies or solutions can you offer in response, and what’s the fastest way to implement them? Which simple changes could help you operate more cost-effectively, productively, and competitively the fastest, and make the biggest impact on your company going forward?

4. Innovation Contests and Entrepreneurial Showdowns

Divide participants into teams and task them to come up with and pitch new product and service concepts to a select group of judges or a wider group of their peers. Winners (including any honorable mentions) should be fast-tracked into production as pilot programs or prototypes. Note that putting up websites, message boards, and online communities where employees can discuss and vote on these entrants can also help you identify ideas you should be pursuing that aren’t technically contest winners.

5. Speed Learning or Networking Sessions

Ask a group of 5-8 internal staffers or external thought leaders (ideally, individuals whose time it would otherwise be hard to secure) to serve as expert consultants. Then let individual attendees cycle through a schedule of 5- to 10-minute meetings with each where they’re free to get business advice, ask questions, or get tips on projects. These brief get-togethers could not only provide useful learning opportunities, but also matchmaking opportunities and different perspectives on how to tackle challenges. Likewise, they often prove a helpful way to spark creativity.

Challenge your peers to dynamically problem-solve, test innovative strategies, and adapt their thinking in real-time with role-playing exercises grounded in tackling real-world scenarios.

6. “CEO for a Day” Challenges

Split meeting participants into tables of no more than eight individuals hailing from different areas of expertise, departments, and seniority levels. Give them a fictional company to oversee and a challenge to face. For example, you might start by letting them know that they’re now in charge of leading nationwide retailer Top Buy, but that they're having trouble stocking product due to supply chain challenges, experiencing ongoing worker shortages, and more customers are switching to online purchases with each passing year. Afterwards, ask each table to take 30 to 60 minutes to come up with strategic solutions, then present their ideas to the wider group at large.

7. Reverse Thinking Activities

Split your attendees into teams of different sizes and diverse demographic makeups. Then ask them a series of leading questions such as: if you were in charge of one of our company’s leading rivals, what would you do to outfox and outmaneuver us? What specific products, services, or lines of business would you aim to outperform us on, how would you go about doing so, and which opportunities would you tackle first? Following these inquiries, turn the tables back around, and ask them: how can we safeguard ourselves against these maneuvers – and what can we be doing to operate more competitively, more cost-efficiently, and keep other firms off of our back?

8. Evolving Discussions

You can also add elements of creativity and dynamism to any discussion by building presentations and talks around broad themes – diversity and inclusion, the future of travel or finance, etc. – and setting a 5- to 10-minute timer. Each time it goes off, have speakers change the topic they’re presenting on while still staying in keeping with the broader theme they’ve been assigned. For instance, a keynote speaker on the future of work might start by discussing managing hybrid teams before transitioning onto the use of new remote work technologies and how to adapt to workers’ more flexible schedules. Afterwards, they might make the leap to chatting about how to redesign operating models to incorporate more distance learning solutions and virtual collaboration tools and the role tomorrow’s workplace will play in an organization.

9. Peer Review Programs 

Assign meeting attendees to a group of 4-8 individuals. Then ask them to come up with their best ideas or solutions for addressing a pressing business problem, such as how to make your company more sustainable or how to slash manufacturing or production costs. Each of these suggestions should be critiqued and debated by panels of colleagues, external subject matter experts, or individuals from outside the organization, such as academics, clients, business partners, or members of startups or fan communities. At the end, this panel of esteemed judges should bestow awards for solutions that teams have put forth – most innovative, most likely to succeed, best business plan, etc. – and small prizes to go with each.

10. Fireside Chats and Town Halls

Rather than structure talks by notable personalities as one-way presentations, you can make them feel more engaging, approachable, and dynamic by structuring them as informal Q&As and conversations. Fireside chats allow moderators to go one-on-one with interview subjects and speak more casually about a wider range of topics of interest. Town halls enable them to put audience questions to featured personalities as submitted by the audience at large. Both provide opportunities to let a thought leader’s personality shine through, prompt more engaging off-the-cuff dialogue, cover more topical ground, and let audiences ask pressing questions that are top of mind in a comfortable setting that invites more commentary and input.

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