Making Virtual Meetings Better than the Real Thing in 5 Steps
March 13, 2020
Let's face it many of our meetings feel un-needed, painful or pointless. However there are some key reasons to hold a meeting
- to get everyone in a team sync'd and "on the same page"
- to solve a problem or push for a resolution
- to create and build team relationships
Sadly despite improvement in technology, virtual meetings are often worse than traditional meetings. Simply the lack of presence, social signals and eye contacts allow people to tune out. However here we identify 5 things that work to make virtual meetings better than the real thing.
1. Increased Engagement - 60-second rule
Virtual meetings need to be more animated and engaging from the outset - in less than 60 seconds. Avoid ambiguity and perhaps start with:
- provocative statistics
- worst case examples
- dramatise the problem
Your goal is to makes sure the groups clearly understands the problem (or opportunity) before you try to solve it.
2. Clarify the Attendees and Hierarchy
We are normally keen observers hierarchy and virtual meetings can make it vague which team members are senior, experts and which are observer. Where possible establish credentials, expertise and hierarchy however after that apply the next rule.
3. No Hiding - Participation is Mandatory
In research person pretending to have a heart attack is less likely to get help the more people there are around.
If everyone is responsible, then no one feels responsible.
As above avoid the vague crowd by building on the individual details provided in step 2 by defining are requesting the individual expectations.
- assign actions/expectations to people or groups of two or three (max).
- define the means the solution will be communicated with one another
- create dedicated slack channels or videos for breakout groups with a purpose
4. How do you eat an elephant
The old line regarding "how do you eat an elephant, one spoon at a time"
However regarding online meetings we encourage breaking the information required into small chunks, 1-5 slides and then check-in with audience for engagement.
5. Keep it Relevant and Follow up
It is easy to fall into the trap of treating virtual meetings as just limited real world meetings. However because your virtual contact can be continuous via email, chat (all forms), video and more. You should see the virtual meeting as another means for on going conversations.
As a result you can use your virtual meeting for it's key purpose, team synchronisation, information delivery etc.
The meeting can be kept strictly to this quick purpose and then follow up on the relevant channels semi immediately.
Conclusions
The hardest problem is to appreciate the subtle differences of virtual meetings and maximise the potential. We hope that this guidance will dramatically and immediately change the productivity of any virtual gathering.
