Mummers’ magic
Just what your next meeting needs

If you’re lucky, you can remember outport kitchen “times” when Christmas revelers, disguised in silly costumes and pillow case masks, would bang on the door and skip, dance and sing around your kitchen as part of a Newfoundland and Labrador tradition known as mummering.

Sadly, it’s no longer a good idea, except perhaps in the tiniest of outport towns, to open your door to strangers with pillow cases on their heads - even if it is Christmas Eve. But the spirit of mummering lives vibrantly on in art, craft and music.

It’s easy to see the appeal. Mummers are colourful, magical creatures. They burst onto the scene as friendly strangers who sing and dance in a flurry of happy chaos, breaking all the rules of the house.

It might seem a stretch, but the magic of mummers could hold a lesson for the meeting room.

I recently enjoyed a chat with a new client who decided to come to Myx because she knew an upcoming important team meeting could not occur in her own workplace. Their boardroom meetings had become stagnant and lifeless and that feeling was becoming visible among team members themselves.

According to Patrick Lencioni, author of Death by Meeting and a series of other useful business books, you can judge an organization’s health by the meetings they hold. “The hard truth is, bad meetings always lead to bad decisions, which is the best recipe for mediocrity.” Read more here.

Lencioni defines bad meetings as those that lack dynamism, passion and focus. Great meetings involve a little chaos and a good measure of conflict. Rules get bent and broken as people work through ideas and solutions. The energy level in a passionate, productive meeting is palpable.

Think of your last bad meeting to see which ingredients might have been missing. Did the chair show strong leadership and guidance? Was the agenda well thought out or was it a generic list of reports? Was the discussion focused? Was there a clear expected outcome and a lively discussion to get there? Did a good debate occur? Did everyone enjoy a good laugh?

If you can’t say yes to most of those questions, your meeting could have used a little mummering spirit to shake people out of their chairs and into action. It doesn’t take much. It could be as simple as holding your meeting somewhere different - how about in the middle of the “shop” floor instead of the boardroom? Or change where people sit. Better yet, hold a stand-up meeting. You’ll quickly find out how short and productive a meeting can really be.

Your agenda also plays a vital role. Make that bit of paper useful. Instead of listing the reports to be made (recognize that reports are monologues that put everyone other than the speaker to sleep), frame your agenda around thought-provoking questions. Instead of an HR report, ask: “If staff were to fill out an employee satisfaction survey today, what would they say?”

And for those really important meetings, leave your building and go somewhere different. Stop by Starbucks at 2 pm on any given day of the week and count the number of team meetings in progress. It will shock you.

And, of course, consider coming to Myx. We’d love to help you inject a little mummering spirit into your next meeting. We won’t sing or dance - be grateful for that - but we will give you the place and service to inject a little bit of the unexpected into your session. You’ll be amazed at a what a difference it can make.