By now, you have probably heard of “Nudging”, the inexpensive approach from behavioral economics to change behavior through subtle modifications of processes and infrastructures. Richard Thaler, one of its pioneers, even received the Nobel Prize in 2017 for his work on mental accounting and nudging.

Can you use this approach to change one of the most frustrating and dysfunctional behaviors in today’s organizations? Yes, you can.

We are, of course, talking about meetings. We all love to complain about ineffective meetings and ill-prepared or badly followed-up get togethers. But instead of complaining, we should start fixing this problem, and nudging provides an easy and sustainable way to do so. Here’s how.

Fixing Meetings through Four Kinds of Nudges

In our new book MEET UP! we give meeting leaders and participants a strategy to make every meeting great. We have tested and refined this nudge-based approach to meetings in diverse, real-life meeting contexts and describe some of its essential elements briefly below.

For the last four years, we have used four types of nudges as an effective way to make meetings more productive and enjoyable. We have worked with organizations like the MeetingLAB of the European Central Bank, Pictet Asset Services, and various HR and training and communication departments of professional services firms, high tech companies, public authorities, and nonprofit organizations.

In doing so, we have identified a total of 100 nudges that help you “seduce” meeting participants into better meeting behavior. These clever meeting impulses make use of the full spectrum of nudging, from changing default settings, anticipating errors, pre-structuring decision routes, signaling feedback, to increasing the fun factor of meetings.

More specifically, we have found that most meetings can be improved by using nudges for four crucial areas: focus, orientation, involvement, and accountability. Fixing these four factors leads to efficiently prepared, well conducted, and consistently followed-up meetings.

Here are a few examples of how to solve the meeting productivity challenge with nudging. Many of these nudges work whether you are leading a meeting or just attending as a participant.

1)     Focus Nudges for less, shorter, and smaller Meetings with higher Levels of Concentration

The first key to better meetings is focus. By that we mean a consolidated meeting landscape, a reduced standard meeting duration with fewer participants, and less distraction during your meetings.

You can achieve this by mapping and combining your recurring meeting formats, by making meeting attendance voluntary (try it!), by always having a visible clock in your meeting room, by placing a multi-phone charger at the door, by using brainwriting and rapid-fire mode (please, ban brainstorming from all your meetings), by having an ‘idea/topic parking lot’ flipchart to avoid conversation detours, or by holding stand-up or walk-in meetings.

2)     Orientation Nudges for a clearer Meeting Flow

The second key to better meetings is to provide nudges for mutual orientation. These subtle impulses help teams to navigate their discussions, avoid unnecessary detail discussions, and keep track of the big picture. To ensure this, always visualize and track your meeting agenda on a flipchart, use arrows (so called Navicons) to signal whether you’re deep diving into details (↓) or want to ensure overview (↑), whether to review (←) or plan ahead (→). Other nudges in this area include a permanently visible meet-up canvas (incl. the main meeting goals), a meeting charta, standard agendas, such as ‘SPIN‘- Situation/Problem/Implications/Next Steps, and hacking PowerPoint, i.e. using its highlighter and thumbnail function for better guidance.        

3)     Involvement Nudges for more balanced, constructive Participation

The third key to meeting productivity is fostering high-quality participation, that is to say reducing the potential for dominating participants or inactive team members. You can nudge people into balanced and constructive participation by using the think-pair-share format (i.e., forming ad-hoc teams of two), using gallery walks (poster sessions) instead of PowerPoint, using free visual polling software such as www.mentimeter.com, having the boss speak last, or using the fishbowl room setup.

4)     Accountability Nudges for more consistent Follow-up

Nudging people to prepare and follow-up meetings is the last key to meeting effectiveness. There is a variety of nudges that lead to more individual accountability and transparency. In our Meet Up! book we give managers 26 nudges to ensure execution and avoid the smart talk trap. My favorite ones are starting the meeting with a task/Kanban or Scrum Board, the ‘silent finish’ to start working on your to-do’s already towards the end of the meeting (for just 3-5 minutes in order to overcome the initial task inertia) and the DOCS box meeting minutes – a concise new format to document your meetings focusing only on the key Decisions, Open issues, Confirmed issues/tasks, and Surprises (this last element is the key nudge to motivate people to actually look at your meeting minutes).

So, let’s stop complaining about meetings and instead give nudging a try and go from meetings as near death to near flow experiences.