10 ways to make virtual meetings bearable
And we thought actually being in the room was bad enough!
Subscribe to a useful presenting and discussion platform
Zoom, Adobe Connect, WebEx, etc. provide great ways to reach out to each other in virtual meetings. You can see each other on video, share slideshows and documents, use whiteboards and written ‘chat’ functions. All at no cost other than your company’s subscription to the service. And the basic service for some of these are free – as long as you keep you meetings under 40 minutes. What’s not to like about that?
Online meetings need to be shorter than ‘real’ ones.
Make sure everyone has the right hardware
The platform is a fat lot of good if people can’t access it. Everyone needs a decent office environment at home – a good laptop (with camera), a stable broadband connection, a set of wireless headphones, so everyone can concentrate and contribute as if they are really in the room together. Come on folks, we may be sat at the kitchen table, but we are still professionals.
Set meeting goals that actually sound exciting and urgent
‘Weekly Team meeting’ is a title that makes most of us groan with boredom. Yes, it is the weekly team meeting – but give it an eye-catching headline title. Something like ‘Preparing for the biggest pitch of the year’ or ‘Learning from experience – what we won’t do next time’. Then no-one will think the meeting is just the routine run-through of what everyone is doing. Because, let’s face it, we don’t really care…
Create an agenda that gives everyone a chance to shine
An agenda with 23 items turn everyone off. But the agenda needs to be long enough to sound meaty and deal only with a few key points. Make sure the item titles are self-explanatory. And if accompanying papers are needed, they should be emailed to all involved or sit on Slack or some other new-fangled tech. Every item needs a set of initials against it, so everyone knows they’ve got to have something ready to talk about – and impress each other.
Start and end on time!
We don’t have the excuse for being late of rushing from another meeting on the 15th floor or being stuck in traffic. So start on time to increase that sense of urgency – but don’t drag it out either. Keep up the pace. Finishing early if there’s nothing else to talk about. Always leave people wanting more – not less!
Celebrate every single success – however tiny…
We all need to hear stories of success. Even if everyone has heard the news, use meetings to shine a light on the heroes – and include as many people as possible in making the success possible. If we’re going through a crisis as we are now – it’s amazing how little it takes to lift the gloom. Try to make everyone a hero – if only for doing something to help each other.
Don’t humiliate failures – or dwell on them
Not everything in life goes to plan – and we do have to talk about trains that have jumped the tracks. But resist the blame game and focus on positive actions to put things right. No-one benefits from ritual humiliation! Conversations with individuals who have screwed up are best done one-to-one after the meeting. The great thing about online meetings is no-one sees you dead-man walking into the boss’s office for a ‘friendly chat’…
Use all the communication & interaction tools the software provides
If you’ve got the platforms mentioned above, give your meetings interest by using the tools. Show a few PowerPoint slides, have a poll to gather views, write on a virtual whiteboard to record ideas and concerns, use break out rooms to get the team to work on an issue in small groups, even show a video to lighten the mood. Make the meeting varied, fun and remember .. short. Sounds better than being in the office slumped around a board room table, doesn’t it?
Motivate each other – we’re all in this together
Try to be positive about other people’s ideas. Don’t respond with ‘No, that’ll never work’. Do what the improv comedy stars recommend, reply with ‘Yes and…’ then adding your ideas to embellish the suggestion. The person who thought of it will love you. It also encourages others to come in with their suggestions – they feel more secure doing so if the atmosphere is receptive.
Agree positive actions and next steps before the end
However grim the meeting may have been, it will always sound as if was successful if it ends with a summary of what’s been covered and agreed. A reminder of who’s doing what next and when, also means everyone goes away with some positive actions to take. Make sure someone was ‘volunteered’ to do some simple action minutes at the start, so no-one arrives at the next meeting able to claim they didn’t know what they were supposed to do.
Writing this list I realise that virtual meetings might even be a lot more satisfying than the ones we hold in a conventional office environment. Who know, when we finally get back into our offices in 2021 we might bring our new skills back with us.