Taraxacum – dandelion, an ‘ordinary’ flower in springtime in the Northern hemisphere.

How much are you in love with your ORDINARY meetings?

In a scale from 1 (no love at all) to 10 (honeymoon)? Be honest.

I love mine. Mostly. I love the spirit of co-creation. I get work done. They are purposeful, connecting and give me energy. If not, I most probably did not do my ‘homework’.

There was a time I was not happy with my ordinary meetings (they were dysfunctional with too much information sharing and too little collaboration).

The problem with ORDINARY meetings is, well, that they are ordinary. They come back in our day to day collaboration as the recurring meetings with colleagues and (network) partners. We are used to them. We think we don’t have to do a lot to make them happen. Because they are not special. Because we know how to run them on auto-pilot.

With SPECIAL meetings (or workshops, events, conferences) it is different. We care. We invest to make them special and exciting. We think about the Ps: We negotiate the purpose and develop a plan how to create engagement. We get people involved, define and share roles and make sure that the event is facilitated.

So what would happen if you would treat your ordinary meetings as special ones? Just a little bit. Could you fall in love with your ordinary meetings?

I think you can when you think about the What, Why and How.

I see my meetings as valuable for my collaboration. I need them to advance with my day to day work. I know What I want to discuss and Why I want to meet. I come prepared. With preparation I mean more the inner preparedness than a scripted agenda. I often start the meeting with clarifying the Why and How. Together with my network partners, we are mindful about how we organise our conversation.

I hope you find a way to love you ordinary meetings better.

Thanks Tenneson Woolf for inspiring this blog post “Love Your Ordinary”

This blog post is part II of a series on how to fall in love with your ordinary meetings:

Upcoming workshops

Liberating Structures Online Immersion Workshop
May 31 – June 3, 14h-17h CET
BONUS: Profit from an explorative Broad Stroke Session on May 18, 15h30-17h CET
GROUP OFFER: If a group signs up with 4 people, the 4th person will join for free!
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Bringing your Meetings & Workshops Online. Confident, Creative & Convincing!
A series of live online workshops on how to unleash the power of engagement and collaboration in the virtual world. In collaboration with cinfo
5 weekly highly interactive workshops. August 30  – September 28, 2021 on Zoom!
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