Pardon My Elbow

My favourite way of getting a group of people to talk to each other is to hold the meeting in a room that is slightly too small.  While this may seem discourteous when first considered, it actually helps groups accomplish their goals, thus, spending their time more effectively.

My first understanding of this phenomenon came about because I had to hold a vendors meeting and the only room available was cramped:  the table took up most of the space and the chairs were unsociably jammed in around it.  Literally everyone had told me that vendors would never talk to each other, including the participating vendors who thought this a quixotic idea.  My fear was that the lack of elbow-room would stultify conversation even more.  To my surprise, as the participants shared their personal space, they settled into a productive exchange of ideas and provided me with invaluable information for our project.  My conclusion: you can’t keep your distance if you are knocking elbows.

Later, another happenstance confirmed the benefits of tight space.  The senior steering committee for my project usually met in the formal boardroom associated with their status. Except on one occasion, people with even more status were meeting there, and I had to hold our meeting in the project room.  At first all the committee members sat with stiff, neutral faces, obviously unable to feel comfortable with their status in such cramped quarters.  As I left the room to fetch a document, feeling stressed myself, I quipped, “Feel free to play with the toys”, that is, the sponge toys collected by staff at conferences.  When I returned, to my astonishment, they were joking and playfully bashing their very proximate neighbours.  For the first time we had real discussion of vital issues instead of formulaic statements of principles.