That Boring Meeting!

Key Takeaways

[Music] i went to a presentation in front of a bunch of hr leaders and three of the top hr people in the world did a presentation on employee engagement and they talked about everything companies are doing to engage the employees they talked about nothing employees could do to engage themselves and that got me thinking about the topic and i'm thinking wait a minute maybe the challenge with employee engagement is not always the company maybe it's the employee for example i have over 11 million frequent flyer miles on american airlines i'm on a typical flight one flight attendant's positive motivated upbeat enthusiastic one's negative bitter angry and cynical have you ever been on that flight same plane same uniform same employee engagement program what was the difference not what's on the outside it's what's on the inside i'm going to teach you a technique you can use in every meeting in every interaction it's going to make you happier it's going to make you more engaged because on that three-hour flight that miserable flight attendant the real losers not just american airlines or the customers the real losers the flight attendant who just lost three hours of their life being an unhappy person let me give you my case study i want you to imagine you have to go to a meeting a boring meeting stupid powerpoint slides you're dreading the meeting you hate going to this meeting it's going to be so dull have you ever been to such a meeting we've all been to the meeting now i want you to imagine at the end of the meeting you're going to be tested on four questions each question begins with did i do my best to number one be happy did i do my best to be happy number two find meaning number three build positive relationships and number four be fully engaged if you knew you were going to be tested on those four questions would you behave differently and how i've asked thousands of people from around the world that question never has a person said i would behave in exactly the same way they've always said things like i'd be more interested i'd pay attention i'd ask questions i'd find someone to meet i'd make sure i got something out of it then i always say why don't you test yourself because if you're in that meeting and that hour is shot and you're miserable and disengaged who's the loser back to our flight attendants it's your hour it's your hour if you're in that meeting and you're miserable it's your hour i'm gonna give you a challenge you do challenge yourself at every meeting am i doing my best to be happy to be finding meaning am i doing my best to be fully engaged to build positive relationships if you challenge yourself that way in every meeting what's going to start happening number one you're going to be a much more productive member of the team and number two you're gonna have a better life