Fidgeting & crafting my way through meetings

I crocheted this basket during work hours. I can freely admit this on my blog (which I know the State Department reads sometimes) because I did it to concentrate better during virtual meetings, and sometimes between meetings when I just wanted to think through a work issue away from my screen without leaving my home office altogether. 

I love being able to move during my workday. When I was still working in an office building, I'd run or bike in the morning, walk during lunch breaks, and set an hourly timer to take a break from staring at my desk monitor and move around, usually by walking over to a colleague for a chat, or, if I was deep in thought, going to the kitchenette to make tea.

Forced into the parking lot

I never hear colleagues talk about the need to move or fidget during meetings. Though I had a boss once (a few postings ago) who conducted our weekly team meeting while walking around the parking lot. He considered himself a skilled leader (wrote a book about it) but this experiment, along with a few others, wasn't exactly embraced by the staff. It felt awkward because we were a large group and some people wore high heels or were simply not fit enough to keep up with his brisk pace.

Though I should add that, in my opinion, the State Department is good at offering ergonomic office equipment and letting people move around freely during the day (except on the visa window!). But what about the concept of fidgeting and movement to increase concentration and productivity? Or am I the only one with this issue?

I looked online to find some literature on it. Surely, with so many new ADHD diagnoses for adults, and the "sitting is the new smoking" mantra, moving around at work is a topic of conversation? And research? 

Bring in the research

Unfortunately, I'm yet to find good information on moving and fidgeting in the workplace. There are some articles talking about knitting during virtual meetings, but they mostly highlight the mixed reactions people receive from colleagues, that bosses tend to find it inappropriate, and that even a simple fidget toy is still viewed as something that the younger, softer generation is trying to get away with (seems less annoying to mr than the age-old clicking pen or tapping foot, but okay). There are some theories about the benefits of fidgeting, but it seems that in the real world, a "stand up meeting" is about as far as that goes.

What doesn't help, perhaps, is that the idea that people have different learning styles has been largely debunked by academics. It's still a popular concept because it's useful for speakers to think about how to present information, but the idea that every person has a set learning style, like audio or visual, is probably not true. It's just that people have different preferences and different situations call for different tools. If it were true that people learn significantly faster using one method over another, I think the corporate world would have pounced on that by now!  

Attention issues or poor meeting planning?

The articles also mention that employees are more likely to start doodling or use a fidget toy when they're not being engaged during the meeting. This is a tricky one, of course. Should I blame my manager for not making meetings interesting, or blame myself for simply not being engaged enough? Or maybe: we should have different types of meetings for different purposes?

At my previous post, I had a weekly team meeting that was almost entirely structured around engagement: nobody could speak for more than two minutes, everyone had a turn, there was lots of interaction, it had team-building and knowledge-raising games, and there was either a thoughtful presentation or a guest speaker. The goal of the meeting was so learn something but mostly to feel like a team.

But there was also the weekly "manager meeting" that was a total drag. First of all, as a deputy manager, I didn't have a speaking role unless a very specific topic came up that concerned only me and not my boss, or my boss was out (and then I'd be put on the spot, which was stressful!). I don't think there were any bad intentions there, but it seemed as though the meeting was mostly used for everyone to show that they were doing "something important" and for the overall manager to focus everyone on his own priorities. A few times I counted how many new or interesting topics were discussed in the span of an hour, and the count was zero. Nothing new was said. Nothing interesting. And I barely spoke, if at all.

The science of a good meeting

Now I'm not sure if we should make meetings more interesting or simply allow employees to fidget away, or have the option to call in while taking a stroll in the park if all they have to do is listen to what others are saying anyway. Perhaps a combination of the two? For meetings where information is shared, I think people should be allowed to receive the information in any way they want. Why should they have to sit around like a smiling statue for an hour? 

On the other hand, I think it's good to meet in person sometimes in order to allow for genuine discussion and to improve the overall connection and cohesion of the team. These are some of my ideas on how they could be improved based on twenty years of office meetings:

- Purpose. When joining the team, a new employee should get a briefing on the purpose and expectations of various meetings. This is surprisingly rare.

- Structure. There should be an agenda or list of discussion topics shared in advance, so you're not just sitting around for an hour wondering what's going to happen and when.

- Interaction. Meetings where half of the staff is not expected to utter a word feel a little humiliating. Like you're wall paper. Everyone in the meeting should serve a role, or at least have the option to contribute in some way (which is different from being put on the spot or get a turn only to say that you have “nothing to add” because there is no time for you anyway)

- Time discipline. Some meetings should be shorter. I find it hard to believe that every meeting should last exactly one hour. I give credit to most of my managers that they rarely let it go past an hour, but surely meetings could also be shorter sometimes.

- Respect the audience. Employees should be encouraged to become better speakers and presenters of information over time. Even a hint of them trying to make a genuine effort would go a long way. Some of the team leads use their statements and acronyms in such a way that it true subject matter expertise just to follow along. And with some speakers there is a lot of ear splitting "uuuuuuuhm" going on, which is particularly jarring in virtual meetings when it goes straight to your eardrums.

- Virtual etiquette. Clarity around how to look and behave on-camera would also be welcome. Not to make things more complicated, but simply to know if a camera should be on or off and some recommendations around lighting and how to interrupt appropriately would be useful.

- Positivity. This might be my own pet peeve, but I would love to shift the usual tone from "how tired we are and how wonderful everyone is for making it through yet another day of soul crushing work" to "let's start with an ice-breaker or some good news!"