Imagine this, you go to a party to play a monopoly game. After a few minutes you start complaining and say: "Hey Bob, don't shoot with your big feets in my little pawn! That's not how we should play!". Bob says "But why on earth did you put such tiny balls on the playfield! And you know, in soccer we just need one ball!" That's basically what happens in almost every meeting. Someone comes and thinks they gonna play monopoly, and assume everybody is also there to do so. But someone else comes and thinks he's been invited to play soccer and is really mad when he sees how others don't respect the game.

Let's now see how kids handle such situations. Kids don't need much to be able to play with strangers and have real fun. They start by saying stuff like: "You play the bad cop, I play the good cop. Oh and you can't catch me when I'm on a rock". And off they go for hours. Kids are smart, they define roles and a minimal set of rules before they start to play. It should be the same for meetings.

This story shows that instead of starting right away with our meetings we can take inspiration from kids to have a playful and fun time together.

Here are three things you can do to ensure that everyone feels like playing the same game and going in the same direction in your next meeting:

1. Set the time keeper role or bad cop,

2. Set the caring parent role or good cop,

3. Set minimal rules and make people agree to them personally.