Stop Killing Collaboration: Fix Your Room Setup
Stop Killing Collaboration: The Easiest Fix You’re Overlooking
Ever been in a “collaborative” meeting or workshop where… no one talks?
Awkward silence, people glued to their notes, and the facilitator working way too hard to pull ideas out of the group.
Sometimes, it’s not your agenda.
It’s not your people…
It’s the chairs.
Yup! The way you set up the room can make or break collaboration.
Why Most Setups Fail
Two of the most common layouts — classroom style and the big boardroom table — aren’t built for conversation.
Classroom style (a classic for workshops and trainings): Everyone’s facing forward, eyes on the front, zero side-to-side interaction.
Boardroom style (a classic for team strategy sessions): You’re either talking to the person directly next to you or craning your neck to address the whole group. Neither is natural for collaboration.
What Works Instead
If you want people to talk, problem-solve, and actually work together, set the room up to make that the default behavior.
Here are my go-tos:
Small pods of 3–4: Big enough for diverse perspectives, small enough so everyone has a voice.
Partner chats before big group discussion: Gives quieter folks a chance to warm up their thoughts.
Get people moving: Use a whiteboard or sticky notes to get ideas out visually and get bodies out of chairs.
Try This Next Time
If your group feels flat or hesitant, don’t just push harder for participation.
First, take a look at how they’re physically arranged.
Does it encourage conversation… or passive listening?
Change the setup, and you might just change the whole meeting or workshop :)
-
[00:00:00] This week I've got a tip both for people who are in charge of change and transformation on their own teams, as well as internal partners
for how to help groups better collaborate
the way you physically put the room together can either encourage collaboration or it can discourage collaboration. Most often when you are doing something like strategic planning, a team meeting, project meetings, workshops, trainings.
You likely are looking to encourage collaboration and learning from one another and problem solving together. A big mistake I see people make is they either put people in rows like a classroom or in a board meeting style conference table. Here's the problem with that.
Specifically when you're in a classroom style, the focus is in front of you and you're physically arranged to be focused forward and not talking to the people side to side.
And then a conference room table, similar situation. Gotta look sideways to talk to people. It's really not physically set up to encourage people talking and problem solving together. So here's how you change that.
One of my [00:01:00] favorite ways to encourage collaboration is to put people in small pods.
Pods of three to four were great. Just enough people, you get different perspectives, but not so many people that not everybody gets a chance to chat.
If you're physically limited to a conference room that just has one big table, you can bring people up to a board
to share thoughts via Post-It note.
You can ask questions and encourage small group dialogue or partner conversations before we open it up to the larger group.
If you're facilitating anything with a group of people and it feels like people aren't talking. , Take a look at how people are physically arranged and see if it encourages collaboration or is encouraging people just to sit back and listen.