Inspiring Workplaces: Two Pizza Meetings

Published: Wed, 06/20/18

Humor at Work

ISSUE 732 - June 20, 2018


			Two Pizza Meetings

	Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has three rules when it comes to how meetings are run: Two-pizzas; no PowerPoint allowed; begin all meetings with silence: 1. Although I personally think it'd be a great idea to have two pizzas on deck at every meeting, what the "two-pizza meeting rule" refers to is keeping the meeting size to an agile and manageable number: The number of participants should never exceed what two pizzas could feed. 2. No PowerPoint is allowed and rather than meeting agendas or notes that are only bullet points, they use multi-page memos constructed with full sentences...narrative style...with verbs...and nouns...and the whole shebang. The memos give people the chance to fully communicate the thoughts behind their ideas, and give meeting participants the chance to better understand and process the ideas. 3. They start all meetings with silence. Everyone takes as long as it takes (up to 30 minutes!) to read the meeting memo over at the same time to make sure everyone is focused on the same information. Now these rules might not work for you, but there's still some great food/pizza for thought here. What rules would help make your meetings more effective? Do you have the ideal number of people at your meetings? Are you causing PowerPoint-induced meeting comas? Can you open your meeting with a minute of silence - many of my clients open their meetings with a moment of silence to help participants focus and be more present when the meeting starts. And above all else, what pizza toppings would your meeting participants prefer the most?

		Mike's Fun at Work Tip

Thursday, June 21st is Recess at Work Day - a great day to remind ourselves of the rejuvenating mental and physical health benefits of reclaiming recess in our lives. For ideas on how to recess up (as the kids say) your workplace, cruise on over to 15 Recess at Work Ideas for Your Workplace.
		Quote of the Week

“Humor is a way of holding people’s attention while you tell them important truths.” Merrill Markoe
		It's a Wacky World

This made me laugh, perhaps because it sums up the state of the world these days. I recently saw a man wearing a t-shirt that read: "I'm smiling because I have absolutely no idea what's going on."

Cost-Savings to Hear Mike Speak
New Brunswick: August 21-23
Montreal: Sept. 4-6
Toronto: Sept. 14-19
Vancouver: Sept. 24-25
Winnipeg: Oct 15-16
Sydney, NS: Oct. 17-20
Austin, Texas: Oct. 24-26

International Online Humor Summit
40 top international speakers all in one place! Learn how you can leverage your humor resources in your business talks, marketing pitches and workplace from some of the top humor speakers and humorists around the globe! International Humor Summit

Follow Humor at Work