I’ve been doing a lot of meetings by Zoom and Teams, as I’m sure you have.  Here are some tips I share with clients to make them better.  I hope you find some ideas that you can use.

Amp Up

First, amp up good practices that were successful for face-to-face meetings.  Many of the skills you need to Zoom effectively are the same ones you use regularly for in-person meetings, just at a higher dose.

Be Prepared:  Give yourself enough time to test your equipment before folks start connecting. In addition to the normal invitation, agenda, and prep materials, make sure attendees have clear instructions for accessing the meeting, along with troubleshooting information. Most importantly, know what you’re going to do when the technology fails, such as when your internet connection drops.

Start Well:  From the start, make it clear why you’re having a meeting. Zoom fatigue is real and productivity matters, so make it as easy as possible on your attendees. Identify who the leader is and go over the agenda and objectives. Additionally, outline the process for making decisions and giving feedback.

Follow Through:  It’s critical to verbally summarize decisions and action items right before you wrap things up. Check that attendees understand their tasks. Then, as quickly as possible, email a written follow-through.

New Considerations

The virtual environment presents some new challenges for meeting leaders who want to foster respect and encourage participation.

Missing cues:   First, it’s harder to “read the room.” In an in-person meeting you can easily see glazed eyes, fidgeting, and other non-verbal messages that let you know your team has wandered off. Online, they can close the camera and literally wander off. When non-verbal cues are reduced, the chance of misunderstandings goes up.

Conflict intensifies:  Second, whether it’s stress, fatigue, or the informality of working in sweatpants, people’s styles of dealing with disagreement and conflict are often intensified online. Aggression and inhibition are both amplified.

Cultural perspectives have a bigger impact:  Third, whether your meeting participants are in different countries or all from the same small town, ethnicity and culture impact conversation.  Because online meetings depend so heavily on verbal communication, it’s even more important to be sensitive and educate yourself on cultural perspectives about communication and conflict.

Overcome the Challenges

Here are some things I do to overcome these challenges.

Prepare for fewer non-verbal cues

• Expect differences in culture and conflict styles to intensify
• Invite the “whole person,” not just the work at hand

Respect online participants

• Request that speakers identify themselves when there is no visual
• Announce attendance changes
• Do not allow side conversations and distracting noise

Encourage participation

• Listen “behind the words”
• Periodically check-in with quieter participants
• Don’t mistake silence for agreement – take the risk to ask
• Overcome language barriers – put key info in writing and avoid local slang

One More Tip

Finally, here’s a tip that I really like from a colleague.  Reserve the first five minutes of every meeting for informal, optional “connection time,” since many of us are starved for personal connection.  Then get down to the business of the meeting promptly at five minutes after.