A Simple Technique to Make Meetings More Enjoyable - Mike Cohn
Every time I went to the dentist as a little kid, my dentist gave me a small toy after my treatment.
And back then my parents’ house was near Disneyland. From our backyard we’d see the nightly fireworks. Disneyland always saved the most spectacular display for the finale.
My dentist and Disneyland were making use of what later became known as the peak-end rule. This rule says that we judge and recall experiences based on how we felt at the peak and at the end.
My dentist was giving me a more favorable impression by giving me the toy at the end. If he’d given me a toy at the start, it would not have had the same impact.
Disney was going for the double-whammy of placing the peak experience at the end.
Studies conducted by Daniel Kahneman (author of Thinking Fast and Slow) and others have shown that we consider unpleasant experiences better if they end on an up note. The end doesn’t have to be great; it just has to be better than what preceded it.
Meetings are an unpleasant experience for many of us. But we can improve how team members feel about meetings by changing how we end them.
I plan to try this next week. Our weekly meeting begins with anyone sharing good news, whether professional or personal. This week a coworker is celebrating a professional achievement; next week is another’s last before taking maternity leave.
This simple sharing of good news is the highlight of the meeting for me. All the discussion about the work we each plan to undertake for the week is vital, but I enjoy hearing good news from coworkers.
Back in the day, we put this at the start of each week’s agenda because we reasoned it would be nice to start on a positive note. Do you predict we’ll be better served by sharing good news at the end?
Improving the end of a meeting won’t change the outcome of the meeting or the discussions within the meeting. It should, however, improve how people feel about the meeting.
Making meetings more enjoyable (or at least less unpleasant) will help a team succeed with agile
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