VIRTUAL MEETINGS DURING A GLOBAL PANDEMIC
The coronavirus pandemic is significantly impacting business operations around the globe. Companies are canceling travel, postponing important offsite meetings, delaying training, and foregoing large-scale events and conferences. So what can you do when the group interactions we so commonly had before are now on hold or even temporarily banned?
The answer is...go virtual!
Virtual meetings are not new, but many companies haven’t entirely embraced what it means to gather virtually. It’s often considered less effective than meeting in person, and the truth is that if we apply the same methods for meeting virtually as we as we do in person, we’ll fall short.
Participating in a virtual meeting is a very different experience than holding face-to-face discussions. Think about it: When you and your colleagues are all in the same room together, connecting with them is as simple as walking up and saying hello—usually to whomever is nearest. Even reading people’s body language is easier in person. Speech is generally clearer, and tone and volume can all be assessed without even thinking about it. The meeting experience is much more intuitive and natural when everyone is in the same room.
In virtual meetings, many of the “givens” of a face-to-face meeting are not so clear-cut.
Given the individual environments of the participants, there can be a variety of distractions and more of them. Whereas when all are in the same room, everyone shares the same distraction, be it a loud air conditioner, a soft-spoken speaker or a broken projector. But what may be distracting you in a virtual meeting may not be experienced by anyone else. Things like pets, barking dogs, family nearby, a slow internet connection, and a broken air conditioner give you a completely different experience than everyone else. And we haven’t even mentioned technology yet.
Beyond physical distractions, virtual meetings require you to be aware of internet connections, software, computer speeds, and other tech factors. When it comes to interaction in a virtual meeting, you also need to be equipped with tools for presenting, chatting, discussing and sharing whiteboards, all of which could need to happen at the same time. Managing the technology and equipment takes a level of concentration that in-person meetings don’t usually require. However, most people treat virtual meetings as a more passive experience where their presence is greatly diminished and, therefore, their attention may not be required to the same degree.
If you plan properly, you can get more out of your virtual meetings, making them more active than passive. Here are eight secrets to maximizing the success of virtual meetings:
1. CHOOSE THE PLATFORM THAT’S RIGHT FOR YOU
There are a number of virtual meeting applications and platforms that can boost the value of meeting virtually. Some are super simple, easy and even free, while others charge according to usage and services. It’s important to choose an application based on your team’s needs. Use the following descriptions to help you identify the type of virtual platform that is best for you.
Simple: Ideal for one to six people. Examples include individual one-on-one or small group meetings (less than six participants) where contact and discussion are the main requirements.
Google Hangouts
Google Meet
Zoom
Small Business Team Meetings: Ideal for meetings with 2 to 20 people to discuss and coordinate action. Examples include team meetings where participants need to share information, often requiring space sharing, ability to present, cloud storage, scheduling, calendar syncing or chatting (instant message) to name a few.
Google Meet
Zoom
Go-to-meeting
Appear-in
Enterprise Meetings: Need to scale from 2 to 100 or more participants. These meetings require space sharing, whiteboards, chat, scheduling, calendar syncing, cloud storage, vanity URLs, custom emails and breakout rooms for use with small groups during larger meetings.
Skype for Business
Cisco Webex
BlueJeans
Big Blue Button
Trainings and Business Events: Need to accommodate large numbers of participants, multiple break-out rooms, virtual avatars, scheduling, custom emails, custom graphics and event design.
Virtway
Vedamo
Newro
AdobeConnect
For more information on these web-based applications and services, features and pricing, take a look at the following links:
2. ASSIGN A JEDI FACILITATOR
Once you have chosen the virtual meeting platform that best suits your needs, it’s important to assign a facilitator who is knowledgeable about the software and knows the meeting agenda inside and out. They’ll lead participants through the meeting topics while leveraging platform features for interaction and engagement. You can be the facilitator, or you can assign this role to a member of your team or even rotate the role. Just make sure all potential facilitators are familiar with virtual platform application and meeting content to be covered.
3. KEEP MEETINGS SHORT AND SWEET
Nothing is more important than keeping virtual meetings short and sweet, so you don’t lose people’s attention since virtual participation requires a different type of concentration. Best practice is not to let your virtual meetings exceed 60 minutes at one time. If you have more than an hour’s worth of content and discussion, break your meeting into 60-minute sessions with at least 30 minutes of free time in between. Another thing to consider is that virtual meetings need to be as much about contact as context and content. So, make your virtual meetings sweet by taking time to say hello and connect with open or guided discussions that are not necessarily business-related. This kind of small talk can help make up for the connection people may miss from an in-person meeting. To make it easy, remember this simple rule of three Cs: Contact, Context and Content to begin increasing engagement and trust right away.
4. CONNECT BEFORE CONTEXT BEFORE CONTENT
Why do the three Cs matter? Too many times, people log on and jump coldly into meeting content without taking any time to warm up or make contact with colleagues on the line. Plus, the context for the meeting – why it matters – is not clear. As such, participants stay in a more closed position, are less likely to speak up, and hesitant to participate and engage. Implementing the three Cs makes an enormous difference in the effectiveness of meetings, and even more so for virtual meetings. Let’s take a look at each of the three Cs.
Contact refers to taking time to connect with other people on a personal level. It’s about saying hello, inquiring about how people are feeling as they come to the meeting, what their intentions and expectations are for the meeting, and any concerns they may have before getting started. Connecting allows people to bring their human sides to the meeting, which in turn builds trust. A great way to connect at the beginning of a meeting is to begin with a “Check-in.”
Check-ins are typically a series of questions that participants respond to without any comment or feedback from others. It’s an opportunity to speak and be heard, not to discuss or debate. Some of the most common check-in questions are:
How do you feel coming to today’s meeting? This question helps set a clear personal context that all other participants can use to interpret a person’s behavior and participation.
What are your intentions for today’s meeting? Be careful to ask about intentions, not expectations. Asking about a person’s expectations, which enables them to give up their responsibility for a quality meeting and instead voice what they would like to receive, putting the onus on the meeting leader or facilitator. If you ask about their intentions, you focus their attention and response on the things they can be responsible for. The result is a more conscious response where each person recognizes that their behavior and participation impact the quality of the meeting.
Do you have any concerns that may impact your ability to participate in today’s meeting? This question allows people to voice any concerns they have about the meeting, its content or intention. It also allows for people to inform others of a need they have that may take them out of the meeting, such as a prior commitment.
Check-ins are powerful way to learn about any thoughts or concerns regarding the meeting and its content, just prior to getting down to business. Check-ins allow participants to become present, connect with one another, share expectations, intentions and concerns, which allows them to relax into collaboration.
Once participants have checked in and connected, they can relax and settle into the meeting. This is where context becomes essential. The context describes the current situation and explains the purpose of the meeting’s content. For example, if you’re having a meeting to discuss marketing tactics and their roll-out, take time to review why you’re discussing those tactics. If your team has been planning strategy and setting KPIs, describe how you’re now meeting to plan marketing tactics that will fulfill the strategy.
Finally, after people have connected and a clear context has been set, it’s time to get into the actual content of the meeting. Using our example, now is when you’ll discuss and create marketing tactics and planning a roll-out. Be sure to have a plan for how the discussion will flow and how attendees will participate.
The bottom line is that virtual meetings require more time for connecting than in-person meetings. Depending on your team’s dynamics and your virtual meeting set-up, you may need to plan for as much as 30% of your virtual meeting time to be spent on connecting. Don’t worry – it pays off. It makes the meeting more engaging and fun, and people will look forward to this trust-building aspect of virtual meetings.
5. NO MULTI-TASKING, NO MUTE
Right up front, there are two requests you can make of all virtual participants to significantly raise the level of attention and engagement. First, request – or make it part of your ground rules – that participants do not work on other tasks during the meeting. It’s no secret that as we try to get as much done as possible, we tend to multi-task during important discussions. Research shows that this type of behavior results in lower productivity than focused attention on one task. Ask your participants to be 100% present. This means not doing other things like reading or answering emails, texts or unrelated content. It also means not browsing the internet or playing online games.
Second, ask participants not use their mute buttons. Using mute allows people to go unnoticed as their activity during the call cannot be heard. By requesting that participants do not use the mute feature, you are raising their attention to their presence during the meeting. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, particularly when someone is dialing in from a noisy location. In these cases, you may request that they use mute so as to not distract others during the meeting. (Most tools also allow the meeting leader to mute attendees if they notice distractions from background noise.)
6. SHARE MEETING TASKS
One of the best ways to improve the productivity and engagement of your virtual meetings is to have others share in the meeting by taking on different tasks. For example, you can assign time-keeping to one person, facilitation to another, note-taking to someone else, and a particular agenda item’s content to a fourth person. Ask one of your colleagues to run the “check-in” and another to run the “check-out.” Sharing the work keeps participants involved, paying attention and feeling responsible for the successful outcome of the meeting.
7. MAXIMIZE ENGAGEMENT
Especially for virtual meetings, the single best indicator of a successful meeting is that people are engaged and derive value from their participation and experience with others. Here are a few tips for maximizing engagement during virtual meetings :
Deliver value. Before you start your meeting, be clear about how you will deliver value to attendees. Tell them specifically, “In today’s meeting, you’ll receive information about our company’s latest strategic priorities, so you’ll be better equipped to maximize your team’s contribution to the business.”
Only invite stakeholders who need to be in attendance. Each person in a meeting adds to the meeting length by expanding the discussion time and topics.
Start and stop on time. Starting and stopping on time creates trust with participants and demonstrates that you know their time is valuable. Participants will be more likely to be fully present since they know their time will be respected.
Use check-ins and check-outs. Open each meeting with a fun or interesting activity.
Always celebrate something. Use a recent team achievement (no matter how small!), a birthday, or an individual accomplishment to make your meetings a positive experience.
Ask good questions. Good questions focus your attendee’s attention exactly where you want it to be. Participants have to pay attention and use their minds and creativity to respond.
Create small groups to discuss specific topics. The smaller the group, the more engagement is required since there is nowhere for a participant to hide. Groups of six or more make it easier for some to avoid participation and for others to claim the majority of the speaking time.
Use voting to give participants a voice in the decision. Ask people to raise their hands, use stickers or markers, blind ballots, or other voting methods to poll your participants.
Collect meeting feedback. Requesting feedback shows participants that their experiences matter and gives them a chance to help improve future meetings.
8. USE CHECK-OUTS TO FORMALIZE THE WATER COOLER
You’re probably familiar with the meeting after the meeting, where you discuss what happened in the meeting. This informal water cooler discussion can derail meeting plans from gossip and opinions not otherwise shared in the meeting, and can generally impact morale in a less-than-helpful way.
One way to avoid this after-meeting phenomena is to have a check-out prior to ending your meeting. Just like the check-in, the check-out gives each person a chance to voice their thoughts, opinions and concerns regarding the meeting that has just occurred. Ask people to speak what’s on their mind, without interruption or discussion. A check-out is an effective way to get opinions out in the open and allow all attendees to be heard equally.
WITH SOME ADAPTATIONS, VIRTUAL MEETINGS CAN BE AS EFFECTIVE AS IN-PERSON MEETINGS
Virtual meetings are different than in-person meetings. Treating them exactly the same will lead to poor outcomes and a loss of faith in virtual collaboration. Learning the differences and applying best practices will improve the productivity, engagement and morale of all involved in your meetings.
Choose an easy-to-use virtual meeting application that fits your needs. Learn how to use the tool well so you and others can facilitate the virtual meeting while taking advantage of tools like presentations, whiteboards, break-out rooms and chat. Keep your meetings short and sweet, while leveraging the three Cs: Connect before Context before Content. Finally, try a variety of approaches for raising engagement during the meeting.
If you can apply these different tips, you can not only improve your team’s ability to meet virtually, but you will build trust, coordinate action more effectively and have fun while doing so.
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