Whoever says he or she loves meetings is lying. Meetings are boring and most people build an inner resistance toward them.

So when I was tasked with organizing and running a recent conference in Munich, I could feel that while everyone was really glad to convene and discuss the topic at hand, they also feared being plagued by hours of senseless blah, blah, blah.

“Let’s get this over with quickly,” one attendee said.

I smiled a slow smile.

“In my experience, slow is faster. Let us begin.”

What they thought (and quite honestly, I did too) would take five hours took exactly one. We completed our assignment with a great discussion.

Not a word was wasted, not a second spent on useless chatter.

The pace of the meeting felt right. As we delved into the topic, everyone paid attention. No one checked cell phones or dashed out of the room for even a moment.

And we all left grinning from ear to ear, feeling good about the work we did and the ideas we exchanged.

What’s the best way to run a conference? Walk it instead.

Slow — in a word —  is magic.