If the explorer John Cabot hadn’t set foot on the rocky shores of Newfoundland in 1497 he likely would have been attending a meeting somewhere. Why? Because meetings are all about exploration, discovery, and displacing the local inhabitants. But mostly they’re about discovery.
At the last meeting I attended, for example, I discovered a pair of someone else’s underwear at the bottom of the sheets in my bed. But let’s focus on the more substantive and less disturbing 
discoveries waiting to be uncovered at meetings.
Such as discovering a new, unmapped town you had never heard of before because the hotel you booked is, in fact, not “a stone’s throw away” from the meeting venue, but more like “three bus transfers, a six kilometer stroll and a short gondola ride” away from the venue. A stone, in other words, roughly the size of Prince Edward Island. Ah, the joy of discovery!
But the real adventure begins once you’ve immersed yourself among the native meeting participants, whom you’ll readily identify by their colorful plumage, strange dialect imported from the South Pacific island of Bureaucratese and, well, their name tags. (Exploration is much easier now than in John Cabot’s time, when hardly anyone wore name tags, other than Cabot’s children, whose names he could never remember after being at sea so long.)
Once you’ve settled into the meeting the list of things to discover is, like the lineup at the luncheon buffet or the opening remarks from the local mayor, seemingly endless.
After arriving late to every session on day one, for example, you’ll discover that there is a two hour time zone difference from your homeland. You’ll discover that many of the PowerPoint presentations are neither powerful, nor do they have a point. You’ll discover that the “gluten-free, low-sodium, low fat,” luncheon option is water. And, if you’re a woman, you’ll discover that a one-to-one ratio of men’s to women’s restrooms was poor planning on the part of every facility designer on the planet.
But of course, the deeper purpose of meetings is to facilitate “self-discovery” among the meeting participants, also known as, “finding your own way back to the hotel after you’ve missed the last shuttle bus from the evening’s offsite entertainment venue.”
The truly meaningful self-discovery doesn’t, however, happen in the dark alleyways you’ve accidentally wandered down in search of your hotel. The true business of meetings is, rather, to light the path towards even less traveled, more frightening, and much darker recesses. Yes, it’s all about a journey into little used portions of your mind. (The size of this uncharted territory will vary from meeting participant to meeting participant, and may expand substantially depending on the location of the offsite entertainment venue.)
Which means meeting planners, speakers and facilitators must act like lamplighters, or more poetically, pigeons, or even more poetically, like belching, listing tugboats, helping to guide meeting participants toward the barren, lichen-encrusted, most desolate regions of their minds.
This is a role the meetings industry must take seriously. Here are a few simple ways to encourage an atmosphere of deep discovery:
- Offer every meeting participant a headlamp and map, and encourage them to wear khakis and Tilley hats. (It’s important they look the part.)
- Bring in speakers who will cajole, prod and poke participants, and not just physically (although that’s important, especially after a late night), but mentally as well.
- Forget the namby-pamby 17-minute Ted Talk style of presentations that barely scratch the cerebral cortex. To get deep into people’s minds you’ll need presentations that last hours, possibly going well into the night. A simple rule of thumb to adhere to: ensure speakers don’t stop presenting until at least 30% of the audience is crying. That’s when you know you’ve made important breakthroughs and forced people to go deep inside themselves.
- Encourage passionate discussions. To help foster heated debates turn off the air conditioning and bring in those people who phone in to talk radio programs. You know, like Al from Red Deer.
- Ask challenging questions that force people to make new neural connections, unlock hidden trapdoors, rearrange the furniture in their attics, and possibly even rotate their tires. Questions such as, “What’s up with that?” and, “Where are we? No, seriously. Where the hell are we? It took me three hours and a gondola ride to get here.”
Follow this advice and you’ll land upon the shores of a new found land of deep discovery that even John Cabot would envy. Or, you know, Al from Red Deer.
Michael Kerr is a Canadian Hall of Fame Speaker, highly in-demand international keynote speaker, and the creator of the Culture Leadership Online Academy. Michael is also the author of 8 books, including: The Humor Advantage: Why Some Businesses Are Laughing All the Way to the Bank; Hire, Inspire, and Fuel Their Fire; and The Jerk-Free Workplace: How You Can Take the Lead to Create a Happier, More Inspiring Workplace. www.MikeKerr.com
