Quiz question: What do small plates, pink prisons, flies painted on urinals and organ donation all have in common? And what does any of this have to do with meetings?

Well, all four cases are examples of nudging in action and the same mechanism at work here can also turn your meetings into productive meetings. The idea goes like this:

If we use smaller plates, then the portions appear larger and we feel full faster, meaning we eat less. In a US prison whose cells were painted pink, the number of aggressive attacks fell significantly. Since images of flies began appearing on the urinals in men’s toilets at Amsterdam Airport, the floors have been much cleaner (men, it seems, love aiming at something). Similarly, in countries where you are automatically registered as an organ donor and have to opt-out if you do not want to be one, the number of potential donors is much higher than in places where you have to opt-in.