Good-bye days of traditional face-to-face meetings! Working remotely has grown in popularity over the years with increasing technological capabilities, and studies to back up the positive aspects of it. Although this is not a traditional office environment, meetings still need to be professional. Virtual meetings are now common place, but there are many challenges and missteps. Here is how to run a professional virtual meeting.
Not long ago, I wrote an article about facilitating and leading a meeting that matters. It outlined how set the structure, agenda, and meeting facilitation. But it assumed the traditional face-to-face meeting interactions. With the changing landscape of meetings, it’s time for an update on how to lead a virtual meeting that matters!
What are the virtual meeting platforms?
A platform, or program that allows you to easily connect remotely with your colleagues with video, audio, and even the advanced shared screen function!
Popular ones are GoToMeeting, Skype, or Zoom. An ideal virtual meeting platform has the ability for video and audio capabilities.
How are virtual meetings different than face to face meetings, really?
They are very similar really, do not let the additional technology fool you. These meetings still require an agenda, a clear goal or desired outcome, and some facilitation stills on your part. You probably have all of these skills as a leader, but there is some tweaking that you need to do to run virtual meetings.
There are two different virtual meeting outcomes: decision making or information sharing. Smaller meetings of less than 10 are reasonable for team decision making, but greater than that you will risk losing voices. At this point 11 or more individuals becomes an information sharing or debriefing only.
When we communicate virtually, we can become less influential than when we manage face to face. You will have to adjust your leadership style to something more effective for this role, such as a facilitating leadership style. Communication is so important, and when you think you have done enough, you still may need to do more!
In face to face meetings, have you found that it’s a great idea to bring a lot of people together to solve a problem? Probably not. They have likely crashed and burned because there are too many diverse opinions to get anything decided or problem solved.
It’s the same thing for virtual meetings. In a smaller group (ideally 7 or less) there is greater ownership of the problem and the team is functional enough to make decisions or complete tasks.
What challenges are there for virtual meetings?
Perception that participants can multitask
The temptation is definitely there to respond to emails, work on your own tasks, and even to online shop in a different browser.
I’m sure you have experienced this in face to face team meetings where people will sneak a look at their phone when you are talking. When there are no eyes on them so to speak, the temptation to multitask increases.
The problem with this is it isn’t so innocent. How well can we really do two jobs – listen, and type? We can’t put our full attention in to either. Key pieces of information can be missed, or poor quality emails can be sent. Plus, we have all heard the sounds of someone clicking away at their keyboard. It’s completely distracting when you are trying to speak.
Ease of tuning out information
If you have ever had people clearly tune out when you are speaking to them one on one, how easy is it to disengage during a virtual meeting? Let their mind wander, go grab a snack from the kitchen?
If there are too many people trying to speak at once, it can be easy to miss key information when it becomes overwhelming to follow everyone.
Technology intimidation
If people are too nervous to speak up during a virtual meeting – is this still on mute?- then you risk losing a diversity of opinions. It’s easy to disengage others if they do not feel that they can fully participate in a meeting.
You need to ensure inclusive communication, all voices need to be heard, or at least each individual member has a part to play in the meeting.
Follow through
Ever notice how people take fewer notes in a virtual meeting? I’m guilty of this. Including forgetting who was responsible for what. Even if they agreed to do the task in the first place!
To combat this, take small notes on your agenda as to who is responsible for what. Send out a summary email. This does not need to be official minutes. A quick summary of:
- Thanks for the meeting
- Comment on the productivity
- Summarize what decisions were made
- Who is responsible for follow-up or future deliverables
- When the next meeting is scheduled (if applicable)
What makes for an effective virtual meeting?
Here are the 8 essential elements to run a professional virtual meeting:
Before you start: set a clear agenda
Have a mini disclaimer or rules of engagement before you begin that address team feedback, muting, places for group participation. Establish a common purpose of why you are coming together. Reiterate during the meeting if necessary to get things back on track.
It should be also clear to participants if this will be an information sharing meeting, a review or update, or a problem solving meeting.
Touch in with others that are presenting in the meeting. Are they ready to go? Do they need anything from you?
Platform choice matters!
Ensure that you pick a virtual meeting platform that will allow for audio and video. Pick one that is user friendly. Consider sending out the meeting invite that “starts” a few minutes early so that people can get connected. For instance, if you intend for the virtual meeting to start at 9:00, send the email invite for 8:55. This will allow for connection time.
Ensure that your internet connection is stable. There is nothing worse than attending a virtual meeting that has lots of lag time or drops meeting members.
Encourage open dialogue within the group
You can tell that you are being successful at facilitating that if you see that members are being open and frank with each other.
Engage with the group members who have not been speaking up to bring them in to the conversation. Ask frequently if anyone has anything to add or say. Sometimes the perception of having the opportunity to participate in the discussion is enough for group members to be satisfied with a meeting. Not everyone has a strong opinion about something, or their opinion may have already been vocalized by someone else.
Set the rules of engagement
Make it clear that everyone should be focused on the meeting so that they can participate when called on for their input. Let them know that emails can wait. If people know they will be called on, they will pay attention so that they can answer!
Ensure that everyone is respectful of each others contributions to the meeting. Set the tone by encouraging and recognizing good ideas. Other contributors in the meeting will start mirroring the same language as well. “I agree with Tom, that’s a good course of action” or, “That’s a good point Jan. I wonder if we have considered the impact of that change”.
Keep it on topic
As a facilitator of a virtual meeting, it’s up to you to keep the meeting controlled. To keep things moving along, keep the conversation geared to the agenda items. You can be the judge as to when conversations are going in the right direction, if the time is running over, or if there seems to be a disagreement in the group.
As much as possible, stay on topic until it is complete. If you leave too many hanging agenda items, people may feel that the meeting was a complete waste of time because nothing was accomplished.
If there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm for a topic – or you get the sense that someone has become alienated in a disagreement – see if it is possible to discuss as a smaller group later. When teams meet virtually, the opportunity for nuances in communication are eliminated. When video chat is not used and it is all via group chat text, conveyed meaning through non-verbal clues such as tone and body language are eliminated.
Develop action plans
There should be at least a quick action plan that defines what you are deciding, who the final decision maker is, and when the decision needs to be made.
Conclusion
Conclude the meeting ensuring that decisions were made according to the agenda. There should be a clear sense of accomplishment to the meeting so that people feel satisfied that this was a good use of their time. If you run pointless meetings virtually, what are the odds that people won’t tune out or start to multi-task?
Follow through and follow up
Send out a follow up summary of decisions made, who is responsible for follow ups or deliverables. There should be clear ownership of tasks. Remind the team when items are due and when the group will be engaging again.
Some additional tips and tricks, etiquette advice
- think about where your camera is on your computer. Angles matter, and you don’t want everyone looking up at your nose hairs.
- Dress appropriately, don’t show up in your pajamas (at least on top)
- Ensure that you have adequate light
- Check your internet connection stability. If you have weak internet connection, choose a different spot to have the meeting.
- Become familiar with how to mute all participants and instruct them how to un-mute themselves at the beginning of the meeting.
- Be aware of any noises in the background that are under your control. Don’t have music playing in the background.
- Use names while you are in a meeting. In person, we can rely on body language to gesture towards someone to acknowledge, “good idea”. When you have multiple participants in a conversation and you say, “I agree with Marie’s idea”. Marie is now more engaged and psychologically others are more engaged because they want that feedback from you too.
- Don’t get up and wander around the room. Stay engaged.
- If it’s not your company norm to eat while having a meeting face to face, you shouldn’t be eating during a video call either. If you aren’t sure it would be fine to drink tea or coffee during a meeting, err on the side of caution.
As a final take away, running a professional virtual meeting can seem like an intimidating task. It takes practice since it can feel so different from the traditional face-to-face meetings. Virtual meetings will continue to be increasingly common. They can take some practice, but with your practiced leadership facilitation skills, you will be getting comfortable with the technology in no time.