How to have awesome virtual meetings
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In our work as consultants we facilitate and support hundreds of meetings a month. Our experience is that it takes real practice as a team to have effective meetings. Virtual meetings are even more challenging.
With the ongoing Corona outbreak working from home might no longer be a luxury but a real necessity. We would love to collect and share the best tips for awesome virtual meetings. By the way, most of these tips, apply in your regular face-to-face meetings as well. They are just extra important when you meet virtually.
#1 Invest in an emotional connection
In face-to-face meetings we can use visual cues we receive. Think about body language or facial expressions. These cues are very informative about the weay the meeting is going. Are we engaged? Are we distracted? Are we in love with the proposal thats presented? Are we hostile to each other’s arguments? How do you deal with this in virtual meetings? It’s great if you see each other on camera, but it’s still hard to really grasp how we are all feeling.
Having a real, human, and emotional connection with each other in meetings is for most teams quite an advanced practice. Here are a couple of tips how you could practice this in virtual meetings as well:
Tip 1: start the meeting with this, before you dive into the first meeting topic! Make a quick round. Most companies call this a “check-in round”. Where everybody, one-by-one can simply share how they feel, what their day is like, or what their intention for the meeting is.
Tip 2: ask for it! If you are aware that you can’t sense all emotions in the “room” but you would like to know them, you can ask for emotions. It works as easy as “let me pause here, what do you think and feel about what I just shared?”.
Tip 3: Take a pause in the heat of the moment. You all recognize the moment when you just had a deep debate, a tough conversation, or a heated argument. The trick is to recognize it when you are in the middle of it. When it’s effective try to enjoy the moment. But when it doesn’t feel productive anymore, its hard to call it out. What helps is to allow everybody to simply call out “Lets pause for a second”. When someone calls it out, reflect briefly, and find an easy way to restart.
#2 Capture meeting results real-time and make transparent
Do we agree on what we have agreed? Do you recognize these meetings where you think you have come to a conclusion, but… in reality different people have different ideas of what’s agreed upon? Recognize that you only find out about this hick-up long afterwards? You can solve it in virtual meetings by having the note-taker share their screen, or use a live document which everybody can access real time.
At the conclusion of a discussion everybody can see what the stated decision is. A new way to see that truly the pen is mightier than the sword!
Try not to rush into the next agenda item. Instead take a moment to check together if we all recognize the conclusion or actions that came out of the meeting.
#3 Use a process known to everyone
Meetings can be little bursts of chaos. When you don’t see each other, how do you efficiently get to a decision? Use a process! Not only decide on the what you will discuss, but also on the how . Do you have a format that allows you to be fast and inclusive at the same time?
Here is a simple A-B-C:
A’s: Actions. very quick points. I need to just quickly share something, ask something or get an action to someone. That’s it. Typically, then just one or two people say something and it’s over in a minute.
B’s: Brainstorms. Its my role to do something. I need from the everybody to give me new ideas, help solve something. Just make a quick round. Discussion shouldn’t be that much necessary, because I just need ideas. Because in the end it is up to me to solve it.
C’s: Collective decisions. When it’s time to decide after having a long and heated discussion, the collective decision might pose a big challenge. Honestly, these are the toughest to perform virtually, above all if it’s a serious decision. A first step would be to start with a solution (note that this differs from raising a topic or a problem), after which I will ask for a full round of reactions. I allow everybody to participate and share their point of view. In this way, I hear everybody’s input instead of focusing on discussing only the first-mentioned argument with the entire group. After this round, I will respond and potentially include reactions in a changed proposal. Subsequently, I ask for responses a second time around. However, in this second round, there’s a difference. Instead of allowing open-ended reactions, I ask for specific suggestions to improve my proposal. If there are any explicit suggestions that enhance the proposal, we discuss these. The discussion is strictly about the particular improvement point until we find agreement in the best possible integration of this improvement in the proposal.
It requires real discipline! However, if you master this process, the pay-off is huge!
#4 Create a tranquil space
Getting connected at the start of the meeting can be challenging. When the meeting starts in chaos, eventhough it’s just technical chaos, it spreads throughout the meeting. Everybody wants to feel at ease and focused at the start of the meeting, not distracted by different kind of connection issues.
Here are five tips to create a tranquil space:
Take some time to get to know the tool you use, setup and test your own connection right before you start. Preferably before the meeting, instead of the first minutes into the meeting.
Know where your own mute button is and use it! Having a meeting in a room with “outside noise” can be challenging, imagine having a meeting with 10 different outside noises. So it really helps if you mute yourself if you are not speaking.
It’s always a good practice to start a meeting on time. And when you have a packed agenda you don’t want to lose time at the start. But we suggest to still take time if not everybode is connected yet. It pays off to be connected properly before starting. A chaotic start doesn’t help you get started in the right way. It’s better to take it easy and allow the last person that joins the meeting to figure out their tech issues. Once its all set, go for it!
Not sure which tool to use? Most tools are fine to use. Whether its Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Skype, Google Hangout, Slack or any of the other fit-for-purpose tools. There are some technical details, and you can find real fans for some of the tools. But in general, most are just fine. Some of these tools offer free trials these months, as we are not the only one expecting more people to work from home.
Last but not least, a final tip. Its easier to have an “everybody virtual” meeting, than have a meeting that’s part face-2-face, part virtual.
A good tip is to have a role assigned to someon in the team who’s accountable for the technical tool setup. Let this person be present during the meeting. It really helps to the presenter to not get distracted by technical issues.
#5 Make it fun
Feel exhausted after a virtual meeting? Probably you missed out on some fun. Not being together, might lead to skipping what we usually do at the start, during, and at the end of the meeting: making a bit of fun. Laugh a bit together.
Why don’t we make fun in virtual meeting? Probably because of the general awkwardness to talk into a microphone and to a screen. Also, your laptop just doesn’t smile back when you make a quick joke.
If the fun happens naturally just create some space for it and let it go for a couple of seconds. You will pick-up the content again later and probably faster as well!
If the fun doesn’t happen, just like the other tips: take an effort to bring in some of it. How bringing in some fun can be easy as fixing your tech connection in a virtual call?
A quick check-in, a round of compliments, or someone that shares an anecdote could just do it! Don’t expect to need a stand-up comedian for it, just a little bit of effort is enough!
#6 Articulate explicitly
In many meetings, we are skilled at being vague. As we have mastered this skill to perfection, it takes extra effort to try to articulate and be explicit about what you really mean. It’s even valid for meetings among Dutch people, even though the Dutch are famous for their directness or “bluntness”.
A simple tip is to say someone’s name at the start of a sentence instead of at the end. In this way, you get more attention before you say something instead of after you said it.
Like tip #2, when you use a shared screen to be transparent about meeting conclusions, it’s also good to give each other feedback on how clear their verbal communication is. Did I say what I mean? Did I use words that my fellow participants understand the way I expect it?
A more elaborate articulation practice is to end the meeting with a round of suggestions on how the next meeting can be more productive. In this way, you learn meeting by meeting.
Just like most meetings have one participant to volunteer as note-taker it is a good practice in virtual meetings to distribute more roles. Besides a note-taker it works well to have a facilitator (or president) that facilitates the process during the meeting. Like in parliament, the “speaker of the house” does. Even if you don’t have heated or polarized debates like in parliament, it helps to have one team member who takes a “helicopter” perspective. In this way, you keep track of where the discussion is going compared to the intention that was set for the meeting. Furthermore, you also monitor everybody’s participation.
This allows everybody to participate in the content of the meeting. A skilled facilitator can really speed up decision making, by bringing in a bit more process. It’s a real skill though, more process can feel very bureaucratic as well. It requires even more skill (but in our opinion its definitely possible with a bit of practice), to be both a neutral facilitator, as well as content specialist in the same meeting. Something that helps with this, is the commitment of the team to follow and accept your facilitation.
#7 Slow is fast
In the special forces they use the quote “fast is slow and slow is fast”. This is also true for virtual meetings. If you want to go fast, it probably becomes a slow meeting. Virtual meetings are generally slower, or rather, they are more challenging to do fast.
It’s possible to do fast virtual meetings. But as the quote says, it’s probably best to go slow. You might experience a fast, virtual meeting as very slow. So it might even challenge you in reflecting on what “fast” means in the context of virtual meetings.
Going slow is really subjective. Subjective to the context of the meeting, the topic discussed, the participants, etc. Just as in traffic, there’s not one acceptable speed.
Some simple tips to speed up: talk slower, summarize a long argument, ask someone to repeat something, and accept silence is ok.
If you are practicing tip 1-6 already, youv’e come a long way in finding the right meeting speed. Consider this final tip as one that helps in slowing down even more. Enjoy!
We hope you enjoyed these first few tips! Do share your best experiences with virtual meetings. Over the next weeks we will continue writing and extending this blog with tips we receive. Happy meetings!