|
Meet outside the office
|
 |
October 5, 2000: 11:23 a.m. ET
Fireside chat, barbecue or picnic? A new venue may improve participation
By Jane Applegate
|
NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Do employees seem bored or restless during staff meetings? You may want to hold meetings in venues outside the conference room. Many bosses are doing just that.
People tend to feel stifled when there is one person at the head of the table holding court and everyone else is just sitting around listening.
To encourage staffers to feel comfortable and speak freely, some executives are conducting meetings in venues that range from parks to rooftops to barbecue joints.
Peter Kirwan, the chief technology officer at Navisite, a Web-hosting company, actually puts on a robe and slippers for meetings, gathers employees around a fake fireplace, and serves cocoa. After launching the "fireside" chats, Kirwan said "people were coming up with these great ideas to restructure our organization or solve a problem we were grappling with."
"The setting really broke down communication barriers," he said.
(Jane Applegate, a syndicated columnist and author of 201 Great Ideas for Your Small Business, covers small business for CNNfn.) 
|
|
|
|
|
|
SBTV.com
|
Note: Pages will open in a new browser window
External sites are not endorsed by CNNmoney
|
|
|
|
 |
|
