It started on some torturous Zoom call. I can’t remember exactly when, which I’ll chalk up to Zoom fatigue, which is now officially a scientifically proven thing (more on the Brainzooming antidote later!). The screen was displaying too many people in too many little squares for my liking. 

All at once, I recalled every single one of the most challenging people I’d facilitated through strategy and innovation activities. They were staring back at me and doing those little (and big) things they do to mess up, avoid, slow down, and otherwise thwart innovation. In my mind, the faces on the screen morphed into all those challenging characters. 

Worst Online Meetings Hall of Fame

Emma spun the idea into a Hall of Fame: The Worst Online Meetings Hall of Fame! It’s a celebration, so to speak, of the challenging personalities who have existed since business meetings began. Yet until Zoom plastered their faces on monitors everywhere in the last year, they hadn’t truly reached their starring moments.

During the next four weeks, we’ll share the profiles, catch phrases, quirks, and (fortunately) antidotes to turn these GOAT idea killers into productive collaborators.

Where will you find the Worst Online Meeting Hall of Famers? 

They’ll be all over the Brainzooming Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter feeds. Plus, you can visit the actual WOM Hall of Fame to get an early look at all of the inductees. 

Finally, we’ll wrap up the inductee reveal with a discussion by me later in March on creative (and fun) ways to handle the challenging personalities. Our goal? To ensure that all of you who want to productively collaborate and innovate have all the strategies to make it happen, especially as hybrid and in-person meetings are on the rise in the months ahead.

The First WOMHOF Inductees

The week 1 WOMHOF inductees represent two groups who firmly believe that the status quo is just too progressive for their tastes. 

Three of the inductees revel in their mutually favorite karaoke song, Highway to the Comfort Zone. The Old Coach, Dino, and the Drifter all want to leave things just as they are, or maybe just as they left them thirty-five years ago. 

My personal candidate for this group was a Senior VP at my company. Early in my career, Fred went on about how they’d done something in a particular year that set the standard for the type of project we were currently developing. The year he mentioned? The year I was born, some three decades-plue earlier. I think you get the idea about this trio and their ilk.

Also in Week 1, we’ll introduce The Hammers. They inspired so much early Brainzooming content on Taking the NO out of InNOvation. They are the original idea killers since they have the power to halt operations, money, and resources when they don’t like ideas. (I don’t have the room here to list all the Hammers I’ve maneuvered around in the course of my career.) 

We hope you enjoy the WOMHOF and the Brainzooming strategies we’ll share to counteract these personalities and get things done! – Mike Brown

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