Benefiting at work from Brain Based Insights

I was intrigued by a great post I walked into this morning over at Starbucker’s site … Ramblings from a Glass Half-Full. The Half-Full Book Review on Lisa Haneberg’s upcoming book, "Focus Like a Laser Beam".  

In particular … I appreciated what Starbucker termed advice you won’t find in most “how to” business books:

1. Be intimate with your employees – so unconventional that she straight off addressed the discomfort certain HR departments may have with the concept. No, it’s not about intimacy in the sexual sense, but just simply being comfortable with being “real” in the workplace and encouraging others to do the same.
2. Have fun! – yes, smiles, laughter and a few funny stories are allowed in Lisa’s world, and I’m happy to join that community
3. Do some improv with your teammates – no, this isn’t a book about getting a future booking at the Comedy Store; it’s a technique to build team energy and creativity
4 Breathe. – Obviously, we all need to breathe to live. But it’s HOW we breathe that can make a difference in the workplace, as a means of relieving stress and increasing focus
5. Dump your one-way staff meetings – I realize there are few books which are great proponents of meetings, but Lisa’s approach in taking on the well-established ritual of the weekly staff meeting and turning it on its head is pretty refreshing
6. Don’t multitask – In Lisa’s view, multitasking is the kryptonite to proper leadership focus, no matter what conventional wisdom dictates

Dump one way staff meetings? Is the pope Catholic? Wow – that is a terrific idea and it could clear meeting rooms across a whole nation!

Starbucker also pointed out that “positivity trumps negativity” and so I tried to think of meetings where there was a positive take-away – and there were a few to be honest. These are always meetings where the leader stirs up ideas from participants and where at a glance it appears to participants there is a doable takeaway.

I say appears because at one meeting I won several packages of bright floral seeds for original ideas I gave about the brain’s function in a business problem discussed, and none of the seeds pocked their petals into my garden this summer. These bum seeds stand for takeaways that we think we take from staff meetings at times. By the time we apply them and they fail … the leader has already left.

The positive here? Starbucker’s post inspired me to do several posts on staff meetings … that inspire business growth. Now that makes my day!  What are your tactics to ensure meetings are interactive and takeaways remain alive?