Washington, June 14 (IANS): Next time you go for a boardroom meeting, try to stand up and send your message across.
You are likely to give more creative inputs if you are standing up than sitting in a chair.
According to a new study, standing during meetings boosts the excitement around creative group processes and reduces people's tendency to defend their turf.
"Organisations should design office spaces that facilitate non-sedentary work. Our study shows that even a small tweak to a physical space can alter how people work with one another," said Andrew Knight from Washington University.
Knight became interested in exploring the group dynamics of standing meetings when his university was constructing a new building.
Knight and his colleague Markus Bauer designed a study that asked participants to work together in teams for 30 minutes to develop and record a video.
The teams worked in rooms that either had chairs arranged around a table or with no chairs at all.
Researchers found the teams who stood had greater physiological arousal and less idea territoriality than those in the seated arrangement.
Members of the standing groups reported that their team members were less protective of their ideas.
This reduced territoriality led to more information sharing and higher quality videos.
"Seeing that the physical space in which a group works can alter how people think about their work and how they relate with one another was very exciting," Knight said.
The study was published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.