Place Matters

A recent study out of the University of Leipzig indicates that the chief criteria by which people select friends is geographical proximity. The experiment found a mitful of freshmen being seated in rows at an introduction session. In the study, the most intense relationships among subjects one year after mashing the lot together corresponded most directly with where their random seats were assigned. More than similar interests or values, where people landed dictated who they would befriend.

What are the imperatives here for the meeting designer? Rich McLaughlin recently shared with me a basic outline of considerations for designing meetings. You start with establishing the purpose, which will let you know what people need to be invited. Then you build the plan to achieve the purpose, and account for the people. Lastly, you decide on the place. The plan and place are both flexible, and likely change throughout the process. (Pardon me Rich if there are any descrepancies or copyright infringements on the sketch you did for me and my version above!)

How people are acting should influence where a facilitator places them. If people are nodding off, then it's time to consider getting them out of their seats. If they are too chaotic and not paying attention to the purpose, parking them may be the right move. Of course, initial placement of people is always a consideration as well. Usually trusting the group to self organize is the preference. A heavy-handed urge or seating plan is sometimes necessary to get people to surround themselves with those that they might not interact with, though.

The Leipzig study isn't shocking by any stretch, but it's an important reminder of just how critical place and proximity can be in any situation with a social component - which all meetings have. Should a meeting designer be interested in match-making or prescribing relationships/alliances by intentionally seating people near each other?

I think it would be too "command and control" and inappropriate often, but that kind of orchestration might be useful if there was a huge opportunity to catalyze a meaningful synthesis of ideas, organizations, or other, that might not happen without the extra push.