Christina Toimela on meeting up and making it more efficient
I met Jonathan Bradshaw at my local gym. We talked about human performance, including his climbing of Mount Kilimanjaro and my favourite: gym performance. I had managed three-times 12 reps with 75-kilo weights doing squats that day and was excited about having set a new personal best. When I asked Jonathan what he did for a living he excused himself in advance, getting very excited about his work because of his passion for it. Put simply, Jonathan makes meetings more efficient. As he talked about his work his excitement was obvious from his body language; his hands didn’t stop moving, I realised I had met yet another inspiring person whose story and advice I would like to share with you.
In the late ‘90s Jonathan sold exhibition space at Imex in Hove. Even then he was questioning the efficiency of meetings and wondering why people turned up unprepared or why all the meetings had the same schedule.
“How can we make collaborations more effective?”
It was 2007 when Jonathan caught himself 20 seconds into the start of a meeting not knowing where he was or why he was there. Jonathan had been flying at least once every week since 2004 and he was exhausted. He realised he had become a meeting sceptic. However, he understood that meeting other people is a fundamental part of life and an essential part of business, if you want to make things happen. We know that people must collaborate but how can we make collaborations more effective? There and then Jonathan the idea of the Meetology Group was formed.
Today Jonathan still does not like meetings but he works on making them more efficient as the MD of the Meetology Group. He works in Brighton and London and travels, mainly to the US, as a professional speaker specialised in the science of organising meetings. Here Jonathan shares his top five tips to make meetings more efficient:
1. Prepare. A little research on the people you are meeting (or company they represent) can go a long way.
2. Set objectives. If you don’t have objectives it’s impossible to measure how successful the meeting is. Make sure you share the objectives with every attendee too.
3. Change the group. If you want a creative meeting then regularly change the attendees. Mix seniority and experience with less experience and youth.
4. Make them shorter: meetings are often an hour long – but why? Aim to get things done in 45, 30 or even 15 minutes – it is amazing how much more effective we are when we have to be!
5. Remove chairs: Standing whilst meeting (as well as walking) has been shown to increase creativity. For more information visit www.meetology.com or follow @meetology on Twitter.
Photographs: Christina Toimela
Do you know any people who have really inspired you in Brighton? We’re not looking for celebrities. Not ordinary, but extraordinary. Contact Christina: christina.toimela@gmail.com
