Between the Person and the Place...
- Carmit Shaked
- Jan 1, 2006
- 2 min read
How do you combine health benefits, knowledge sharing, and creative thinking through a small change?
We have all likely participated in a forum, workshop, or learning/thinking group at least once in our lives.
Various meetings occur within knowledge management activities, such as workshops for content experts, peer learning, community member meetings, user focus groups, or thinking groups whose purposes include knowledge sharing, creating new knowledge, brainstorming, social/group bonding, organizational learning, and more.
But have you ever stepped back to observe what happens in such meetings? In other words, are these situations familiar to you:
People usually sit next to those they know and remain in the same seating arrangement throughout the day.
Sometimes, all participants know each other, but sometimes, each participant only knows some of the people.
Most participants sit on the same side of the room and in the same posture throughout the entire meeting.
Sometimes, especially when the meeting consists of a frontal lecture without active participation, you can see some people nodding off because it's difficult to maintain focus.
A discussion occurs, and everyone is entrenched in their position and the thought process they are familiar with.
In this way, we are prevented from fully achieving our objectives. So, what options do we have?
Leave the nature and form of meetings as they are today.
Or make a small change in meetings:
Ask those present to return after the break to sit in different places than before (preferably emphasizing not to move just one chair over but really to a different side of the room). Why?
Changing seating location will contribute in several aspects:
Health benefits - Viewing the board/lecturer for long hours from the same side and in the same posture causes neck fixation and unnecessary strain. From a physiotherapeutic perspective, it's important to change posture occasionally.
Knowledge sharing - When sitting next to one fixed person, you share knowledge with them intermittently. Changing seating locations leads to sharing knowledge with more people in multiple directions.
Social bonding - We usually tend to sit next to those we know. However, especially in meetings with content experts and meetings where we want to build a group, changing seating locations and sitting next to someone different each time contribute to making new acquaintances.
Creative thinking - Changing seating location from one side to another causes a change in orientation and thus contributes to looking at things from a different direction. It develops openness and the ability to think outside the box and think a bit differently.
It's easy, simple, and works - try it and see for yourself!
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