Make the furniture work for you.
A lot of people take the arrangement of furniture in a conference room or auditorium space for granted, like it put itself there. Most likely, it was either left that way by the people in the room before you, or a team of people arranged it according to a floor plan they default to, a floor plan that may not suit your needs.
Ask yourself: What configuration of the furniture will best support the goal of this meeting/presentation?
- If you’re leading a meeting and the tables aren’t set up to allow for maximum interaction and visibility, move them around.
- If you’re speaking and there’s a big screen that is dominating the center of the room, stand in front of it. If you’re using slides, black out the screen when you don’t need the audience to look at it. They’re there for you, not the deck. (That’s a blog for another day.)
- If you sit down at the table for a meeting and you realize it’s hard to see everyone else there, adjust your chair, get higher or lower, push back or forward to get a new angle.
There’s enough for you to think about without being preoccupied by less than ideal furniture placement. Take a minute or two to get it right!
