There are several reasons for the attendees of a meeting/session getting distracted. But this is not a real tough task to make even the sessions which we think would be boring to hell, sound interesting. Most of the times, you might have observed that the discussions within a session happens between only certain people, rather than the whole participants. Some people actually think that this is a win from their side talking too much, similar to what typically companies do with Group-Discussion rounds while recruiting. Many a time, this leads to irrelevant or boring speeches, rather than the intended sessions. Another reason could be the lesser confidence of the person who initiates the talk, which leads to lose of interest among your participants. What could be the other issues that could lead to boredom in meetings? 

Not often, but many a time, the thought of the person who hosts the meeting/session that the participants are of equal skill as the others including him/her, becomes the root of such an issue. Sometimes it becomes his idea to get through the group as fast as he can, so that he could feel relieved of this duty. Arrogance of the participants is another issue. But it is a very less occurring factor in the normal meetings that we come across. 

What can we see from the above described set of issues? All of the issues arise from the attitude of the host along with the participants. Most of the time, it is the attitude of the organizer which truly matters, because he is the one (should be the one) who drives and directs the whole group into whichever path that he wants to! Negligence from the host’s side could not be tolerated, because it will be an obvious cause for the group to lose their track of the proceedings. It is not really a cumbersome task to drive a meeting in the right direction, as it seems to be! 

The organizer can guide his group into the paths that he want them to navigate through with very simple techniques. These techniques could be very easily identified by people like professional trainers whom we can find all around us. There are quite a number of things that the presenter should actually take care of, before the start of the meeting. One of the major things that he/she needs to posses is a proper understanding and idea about the topic that is going to be discussed. Proper learning and preparation needs to be done in order to actually carry this over. Preparation of proper slides or notes could make this part very interesting, among the attendees as well. If the slides prepared are very interactive, then the group will actually be guided in the right direction that the leader wants them to guide through. Many a times, I have seen people preparing bulky slides which carry out all the possible information that could be shared within them. These bulky slides are one of the major things that could kill the interest of the attendees. The slides/notes that we prepare should be very minimal ones. These should be prepared in a way to convey only the message about what is going to be discussed. The impact of such a set of slides is that the group would be forced by their minds to actually think about what all could be the part of this particular piece of information. This could generate much more information and thoughts from people whom we think are least interested in the topic! Some of the things which I would like to discuss here are – 

• Avoiding group creation
• Involving as much as possible
• Guiding through paths without missing the destination
• Understanding types of attendees in a discussion
• Planning etc. 

Another thing which the host should take care of is to avoid creation of groups within the attendees. This is a commonly observed fact and a human nature to be more comfortable within a group where some similar minds exist. This, although a good practice for them, may lead to suppression of some others who might have different ideas within them. In short, there shouldn’t be a group only which comments on the different topics that are put across in the gathering. The host needs to take care that he should maintain an impartial behavior within the discussion, rather than he himself initiating this groupism among the people. 

Another important thing that generates interest among the attendees is the involvement that each of them feels in the session. Getting them involved in discussions proves very fruitful. Many a time, the attendees feel reluctant getting involved in such discussions, which thereby suppresses their opinion on the topic. A small initiative from the host could prove worthy in such a case. 

The ideal way of a discussion should be that a group of people sitting together and sharing their thoughts on topics which have been planned by the host. This discussion should be like a planned journey where the host drives the group through various paths which are opinions from the attendees, without deviating from the main destination of the journey. 

If thought from a host’s perspective, we can find out that there are three classes of attendees in any of the meetings. One is the Over-Expressive, who expresses their opinion on any topic, although it is relevant or not. The next group would be the group of Expressive people, who would be paying enough attention to the discussion and provide proper comments. The third group is the Least-Expressive group, which expresses very less or never, till they have been forced to. This could be due to their ignorance, un-interest in the topic, or even the shyness which prevents them from expressing. The host needs to take care of the over and least expressive people, in-order to make his discussion close to the perfect one. There is a technique that could be adopted in order to identify who falls into which group. Start the discussion with a little interactive introduction on the topic. Closely observe the responses and the body language of the individual while he responds. Based on his nature, the host can mould the session in such a way that the mentality of people is taken care of! 

All the things that have been discussed above could be covered easily if proper planning has been done before the discussion/meeting takes place. Proper planning of the meeting needs to be worked out by the host/team who initiates it. This brings a lot of difference in the normal discussions. A proper agenda could be evolved, proper tasks assigned, jot down the normal doubts and questions that could come in one’s mind, and many more. A properly planned discussion would be really interesting for the people who actually participate in it. This applies not only to the formal meetings that we conduct, but to all types of meetings and sessions that we normally come across. There are very less things that I have discussed here. There could be more interesting views from others, which should be shared along with others.