11 Jun 10 The Importance of Seating in a Meeting

Many new meeting planners might overlook the importance of proper seating, but veteran meeting planners already know that seating can be everything. The problem is that many participants in the meeting have their own ideas about how seating should work, and few of those ideas tend to be compatible.

For example, everyone wants to be on the boss’s right hand side, but nobody wants to sit near Steve from accounting due to the fact that his gout medication gives him indigestion. Unfortunately, someone has to sit next to Steve and not everyone can suck up to the boss at the same time.

Here are a few things to consider when arranging seats:

• Bosses traditionally go on the end of the table, but consider suggesting a more central location. Better yet, it might be wise to plan two or three seats that will change for different stages of the meeting so long as the boss is amenable to such an idea.
• Keep seats arranged in such a way that everyone is facing the same direction whenever possible. Unity is hard to achieve when people are opposing one another even in the manner in which they sit.
• Those who do happen to be somewhat unpopular might be a good person to seat next to the boss. Getting close to one means getting close to the other, a balance few will ignore.

Tags: Accounting, Boss, Central Location, Different Stages, Good Person, Gout, Gout Medication, Indigestion, Medication, Meeting Planners, New Meeting, Participants, Same Direction, Sit, Suck, Unity, Veteran