Tired of distracted teams? Transform meetings with purposeful play

In today’s fast-paced, tech-driven world, commanding attention during meetings or presentations is an increasingly complex challenge. Attendees are often preoccupied with emails, notifications, or social media, turning valuable discussions into background noise. To overcome the issue, presenters must intentionally foster engagement that goes beyond just delivering information.

The importance of engagement

Engagement is the bridge between delivering information and fostering collaboration. When people feel actively involved in a conversation or presentation, they are more likely to pay attention, retain information, and contribute meaningfully. Think about meetings where you’ve been fully invested. What made those moments different? Often, it comes down to feeling connected to the material and the speaker.

Engagement is built upon four key ingredients that must play together to bring about the collaborative benefits mentioned above:

● Focus your message

● Relevance

● Empathy

● Be present

So, how can we combine these ingredients and infuse engagement into our organizations and teams? The answer lies in fostering interactions that are low stakes, yet purposeful. In other words, play.

Purposeful play: A key to engagement

One of the most effective ways to break down barriers and foster meaningful, engaged communication is through purposeful play. Playfulness in professional environments might seem counterintuitive, but it can unlock creativity, encourage participation, and lower defenses. When people feel at ease, they are more open to new ideas and solutions, creating an atmosphere of trust and collaboration.

Below, we delineate each of the four engagement building blocks and provide a playful activity that helps build the skill.

Focus your message

Start with clarity. Boiling down complex ideas into digestible key points helps to sustain audience focus. An effective exercise for sharpening your messaging is to condense a pitch or concept into shorter versions repeatedly.

Activity: Long Story Short Begin with a one-minute explanation of a project or challenge. Then, condense that explanation to 30 seconds, 15 seconds, and finally a single sentence. This practice not only sharpens clarity but also highlights the essence of your message.

Tailor communication for relevance

Connecting with your audience involves understanding their needs and perspectives. Personalizing messages to resonate with different stakeholders fosters interest and investment.

Activity: Sell a BLANK to a BLANK This playful exercise involves creating pitches for random products to random personas. For example, try selling a plunger to a police officer or a piano to a circus clown. This encourages empathy and creativity, helping you frame messages in a way that resonates with diverse audiences.

Build empathy through storytelling

Stories humanize communication. Sharing personal anecdotes or inviting participants to share theirs deepens connections and builds mutual understanding.

Activity: Memory Lanes Using a random word as a prompt, participants share true, short stories inspired by the word. Each story connects to a new prompt word drawn from the previous narrative, fostering relatability and camaraderie.

Be present in the moment

Presence is about fully engaging with your surroundings and audience. Practicing mindfulness and tuning into the physical space and its details can ground you and enhance your delivery.

Activity: I Love My Spot Explore your surroundings, identify three elements you appreciate, and articulate why you value them. This practice helps center your focus and reinforces your connection to the environment, preparing you to connect with your audience authentically.

Harnessing engagement

True engagement requires collaboration born out of connection with and comfort around others. Play can catalyze this connection and comfort. By prioritizing concision, relevance, empathy, and attentiveness, you can create interactions that resonate. These are not stand-alone techniques; they are interconnected tools that work together to enhance engagement.

When these methods are integrated into communication practices, people will focus and pay attention. Even mundane exchanges are transformed into opportunities for significant impact. Whether you’re leading a team meeting, delivering a keynote, or facilitating a brainstorming session, small adjustments in how you engage can lead to major gains in understanding, remembering, and enjoying. Play is a powerful unlock for engaging communication.