A fun way to make meetings less mind-numbing

As I wrote in a recent post, people in groups struggle to solve the same kinds of problems they are fully capable of solving on their own. In short, meetings make us stupid.

Though we might not be able to avoid meetings, there is a way to make those we attend less mind-numbing. In 2011, I wrote about a game called Word Quest. It’s a creative, brain-building exercise to be played at meetings. All you’ll need is an accomplice.

For Word Quest, you and your accomplice pick one business cliché—such as “move the needle”—and see who can be the first to use that term in a meeting. That person earns the most points. Bonus points are given if you get someone else (not your accomplice) to say the term in the meeting. Of course, you can give extra points for style when someone does a particularly good job working the term into the discussion.

Get started with these terms and sample sentences:

BHAG: a big hairy audacious goal.

Getting my boss past his dependence on PowerPoint has been my BHAG for two years.

Big ask: a request that may be nearly impossible to fulfill.