Have you ever attended a meeting that wasted time you had to make up later that day in overtime doing the job you were hired to do? The speaker bores you … the meeting lacked any agenda … and people showcased irrelevant topics to please the boss….
We know from research about the brain that cynicism works against 
ourselves and others. We also know that in some settings leaders have no idea how to zap boredom from meetings. So what do you do when a meeting drones on … when people seem to have agendas other than the one you value… or when the topic is one that would make a trip to get a root canal look good?
Beside the fact that people hate to listen to leaders drone on at meetings… we now also know that the human brain retains less than 5 percent of what is said by the person droning on … up front.
Here are 5 Ways to Get More from a Boring Meeting … when you cannot change agendas or bring on new speakers … for that matter.
1. Slip a snack… because that will build up your serotonin… a hormone in your brain that helps to open your thinking to new ideas that you stir up in spite of what happening around you.
2. Ask yourself two footed questions to draw out diversity of ideas for a solution to some problem you’ve not been able to solve. In jotting down a question you’ll hear far more than any leader’s two-bits on a topic because two-footed questions stir ideas from your own hidden or unused intelligences.
3. Show the flip side of problems as challenges to solve to the group. If complaining starts on any mundane topic – jump in and suggest one ideas to turn the problem into an opportunity for the firm. Offer one idea and suggest others will likely have even better solutions … then watch the room hop in new directions of interest.
4. Tell people some item of good news … especially when it means naming some success from one your colleagues. A bit of good news may decrease the long-winded neutral news that could have filled its place next.
5. Laugh because laughter lifts the brain at boring meetings – but make sure you laugh at yourself or in appropriate places – or your laughter could bring you more problems than boring meetings bring.
Likely you’ll have better ideas than mine even, but the idea is to take charge and refuse to allow a dead meeting to land your mind in its grave. Stake out a garden for new ideas and then make it happen in you first … and then possibly spill over into the meeting later. You’ll save yourself buckets of misery, build brain cells for new ideas, and others will thank you with a capital T. What do you think?
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