Fourth, if it becomes necessary to vote on issues, why not use some interesting objects to cast your vote. You could use water balloons, or you could throw koosh balls or marshmallows in air at appropriate moment (for aye or nay). You could also toss a stuffed animal, with one toss indicating yes or two indicating no. Again, use your imagination here.

Fifth, find out if your Boss is open to changing location of meeting. After all, there are many more positive places that meetings could take place. You could have meeting around someone's pool to keep cool in Summer, or in someone's hot tub in Winter to stay warm. Or, you could have your meeting in park on playscape. Actually, that's a wonderful place to play Follow Leader, which is appropriate.

Sixth, start meeting by asking an open-ended hook of a sentence:

“Wouldn’t it be hilarious if…” or “The wildest thing I’ve seen at work is…”

You could also be on lookout for funniest quote of meeting, a funny misstatement that can published in meeting minutes. It may take a little time to get humor flowing, but once they do you’ll have a positive energy flow for rest of meeting.

Seventh, pass out rubber bricks to be thrown at latecomers and people who say something inappropriate during meeting. The attendees will start showing up early so they can have opportunity to throw bricks at tardy attendees.

Eighth, you can identify who key meeting degreasers and use Dilbert meeting personality labels, such as, interrupter, babbler, sleeper, and master of obvious. Then you could hold a mock meeting to teach showcase meeting dynamics where you have people in meeting volunteer to play these roles and watch humor arise out these situations.

Ninth, start putting fun thought-provoking items next to last item of agenda. Everyone will race through other items on agenda to get to something that is fun and meaningful. Which will save valuable time that can used more efficiently in coffee break room. Some potential agenda items could be about inventing creative voice mail messages, inventing interesting e-mail messages, rationale for two hour lunch, elevator courtesy, and even meeting stimulators.

Your next meeting doesn’t have to bring a back your boring memories of why you hate them. Introduce some of these fun and humorous ideas into your meetings and pretty soon people will demand opportunity of attending meetings.

We could substitute –

·Men don’t mind ·Asian Americans don’t mind ·Short people don’t mind ·Presbyterians don’t mind ·People who haven’t finished college don’t mind ·Southerners don’t mind ·Rich people don’t mind ·Irish people don’t mind ·Hearing-impaired people don’t mind

Generalities like this simply don’t work.

In “Beyond Race and Gender,” author R. Roosevelt Thomas defines managing diversity as “a comprehensive managerial process for developing an environment that works for all employees.”

And “all” employees are individuals, so there you have it.

There remains need for a common language, and given extreme diversity these days, Emotional Intelligence is an excellent tool. I have trained coaches from all over world in EQ, and concepts are understood by all. In fact there’s interest in EQ all over world.

Emotional Intelligence competencies include flexibility, intuition (good for reading nonverbal communication), resilience, interpersonal skills, communication and empathy. They are based on understanding one’s own emotions and those of others, and managing your own and those of others for best outcome. People from all cultures have same emotions and want to be treated with respect. Emotional Intelligence can bring common language and culture that is missing.

©Susan Dunn, MA, Emotional Intelligence Coach, http://www.susandunn.cc . I coach individuals in emotional intelligence, and offer EQ programs and cultures for businesses. Internet courses and ebooks available ( http://www.webstrategies.cc/ebooklibrary.html ) for a total program of personal and professional development. Mailto:sdunn@susandunn.cc for FREE ezine.