If the most stimulating aspect of your meeting is the coffee station, it might be time to make some physical adjustments.
Tara Liaschenko, founder and creative executive officer of The Link Event Professionals Inc. — www.thelinkevents.com — is teaching meeting planners how to invigorate their meetings by redesigning meeting spaces and adding physical activity.
She dispatches with traditional seating, opting for living-room-style furnishings like couches and chairs, and has attendees spend time “netwalking.”
“Nobody wants to sit in a meeting room all day,” said Liaschenko. “We all really wish we could get up and move around a little bit. As a meeting designer, it is important that we create those opportunities.”
Moving Bodies and Minds
A couple of years ago, Liaschenko made a presentation called “Move Their Bodies, Move Their Minds” for a Meeting Planners International conference in Florida. She and her co-presenter talked about how companies are encouraging collaboration and creativity through innovative office design. They showed photos of nontraditional office settings to inspire planners.
“They saw real-world examples of offices that designed creative office space and saw how that office space design correlates directly to how we should be designing meeting space, how it affects us intellectually and creatively,” Liaschenko said.
The seminar also included physical activity — not yoga or stretching, but activity with a purpose.
Netwalking Exercises Brains
Teams of six to eight people were given a challenge to discuss as they netwalked for 30 minutes.
They returned to the meeting room “energized, enthusiastic and ready to tackle the next thing,” said Liaschenko. “We talked about what happens physiologically when you add movement to the learning environment and the exponential benefits of that.”
Netwalking works for meetings of all types and sizes. The walks are strolls, not speed walks, so even those who use assistive devices like wheelchairs are comfortable going along. Getting speakers on board is a key to making its use more widespread in the industry, Liaschenko said. “We’ve got to get speakers to embrace it.”
Study Shows Creativity Increases
There is much scientific research to support active meetings, and Liaschenko shares it with her groups. Work she cites includes a 2014 report by Stanford University that showed that no matter where people walked, indoors or out, on a trail or on a treadmill, they had more creative responses than people who stayed seated. She also shares the work of psychiatrist and author John Ratey — johnratey.typepad.com — who has written extensively about the positive effects of exercise on the brain.
Studies or no, attendees enjoy walking and talking more than sitting at a table and writing ideas on a whiteboard. Liaschenko always worries there will be someone who won’t want to go for a stroll, but netwalking is always rated No. 1 in surveys of her board retreats.
Creative Ways to Find Seating
When it comes to sourcing creative seating, Liaschenko has taken several approaches. Furniture rental companies have served as sponsors. Venues have pulled furnishings from foyers and other areas to use in her meeting rooms. She also encourages meeting organizers to rent furniture if they need to, deeming it a good investment.
“You have to weigh the cost of the rental versus the benefits of retention, not only retention of knowledge but retention in terms of having these people want to return to your conference. There are some investments worthy of being made from the design standpoint.”
One of her creative seating arrangements felt like a theater, with a cluster of beanbag chairs in front, a row of comfy couches behind them and a row of high tables and bar stools behind the couches. “That way, they can choose the seating that appeals to them, and so they are sitting on something they like and it is more fun,” Liaschenko said.
Companies that have incorporated creative work environments have done extensive studies on how it improves performance and loyalty, Liaschenko said.
“Meeting planners should replicate that in their meeting space and then double down by adding the physical component, which we know reinforces retention of knowledge, increased creativity and increased productivity. We can make our attendees smarter just from adding physical activity.”
