We hear so much these days about productivity, and when you break it down to what it really means, you’ll understand why. Productivity equals profits – basically, the more productive your business, the more money it makes. Of course, it’s about more than cold, hard cash too – a productive business is a business which has high morale, happy employees, and a great future, e.g. plenty of growth.
From that description you can understand why businesses focus so much on increasing productivity. It isn’t all about office space planning and purchasing the best technology to get the job done, sometimes productivity can be increased by the simplest of methods, e.g. looking whether your office furniture choices are suitable, and making sure that your employees are comfortable at their workstation chairs.
One way to increase productivity is to incorporate more active ways of working into your organisation. A sedentary lifestyle, e.g. sitting at an office desk for a long period of time every week day, can increase the risk of serious and chronic disease by a huge amount. For that reason, getting up and walking around is something you need on your to do list. In addition, getting a little exercise helps to boost oxygen and blood flow to the brain, therefore increasing focus and concentration.
You’ll see from the title of this article that we mentioned walking meetings. This is the ideal solution for incorporating exercise and time productive methods! We schedule unnecessary meetings far too much of the time. Sitting around a boardroom table, albeit it at rather comfortable conference room chair, not really making firm decisions, and talking in circles is a huge drain on time. Walking meetings tick two boxes instead of one, in fact you could argue that they tick far more than that.
What is a Walking Meeting?
A walking meeting is really what it says on the tin – a meeting that takes place whilst you’re walking. These types of meetings are generally for smaller collaboration efforts, e.g. probably no more than five people, and the conversation takes place whilst walking outdoors. There is no need for a boardroom or conference room set up in this situation. The reason these types of meetings are beneficial is because of several key reasons:
- When you’re walking, you’re far less likely to procrastinate, e.g. decisions will be made faster, with less ‘off topic’ chat
- Walking outdoors helps to boost creativity, which helps with new ideas and suggestions
- You’re effectively getting a good dose of exercise, which as we mentioned before, boosts the flow of blood and oxygen to the brain, and increases concentration and focus
- You’re also moving your body, which decreased aches and pains, and helps with overall health and wellbeing
As you can see, walking meetings are a great way to make decisions faster and smarter, thanks to increased focus and creative thinking. You can invite many different people to these meetings, e.g. an interdisciplinary focus, which helps you to discuss the issue at hand and create an action plan, helping you to move forwards.
Let’s face it, most meetings end with an impasse. You start off with the best intentions, attempting to stick to the agenda, but inevitably the conversation goes off topic and you all end up discussing something else entirely. By the end of the meeting, or the time the meeting is supposed to finish, you haven’t actually made that much headway with the initial problem, and instead you have another one to deal with too. A walking meeting cuts down on the chances of this happening, and streamlines the whole discussion and decision making process.
Could Walking Meetings Work For Your Business?
When incorporating a new endeavour into any business, it’s important to first decide whether or not it will suit the environment. For instance, it’s no good having a walking meeting if your office is situated in the centre of a large and busy city, and you have no open space to roam. Walking meetings can take place inside, e.g. if you have a large building, but these are less productive than those which take place outdoors, e.g. because the fresh air and natural surroundings is a focus booster.
If however you have an office which is close to an open space, e.g. a large public park or simply an area which you can walk and talk in easily, then perhaps trying a walking meeting for the first time might yield some great results. Of course, you need to walk at a pace which suits everyone in the group, so that is something to bear in mind! Swift walking isn’t really that conducive to focus, as half your group will be too focused on trying to keep up!
Overall, walking meetings have some positive benefits, and perhaps it’s something you should try within your business, to see if it will work for you.