Episode #354: The Nuts And Bolts Of Running Virtul Meetings

Running meetings used to pretty straightforward. We would all assemble in the meeting room, go through the agenda and then get back to work. Now people are sitting alone, operating at all different levels of adjustment to working in isolation. They are in all different family situations too, some of which can make concentrating on remote meetings very taxing.

As the host of the meeting or as the leader of the meeting, you have a role to play. Start by making sure to welcome people by their name as they join the call. It can be simple, “welcome Sachiko, thanks for joining the meeting”. Using people’s names gives them a feeling of inclusion and comfort. Some people will join the meeting by phone and the name won’t necessarily pop up on the attendees list screen. If so, just ask who is joining by phone today, so you can connect the code for participation, with the name of the person on the call.

The worst combination is having some people on a speaker phone or on video, while others are in the meeting room. For those joining remotely, the audio is always a problem. The video is never satisfactory either, because it is hard to gauge reactions of the people in the room just by looking at them on your screen. The people gathered in the room ignore the audio delay issue and speak over the top of others. Even worse, they crack jokes in the room, that those on line cannot really hear or appreciate. When everyone is laughing and you couldn’t hear what was being said, your feeling of being an outsider is magnified. Add in the language issues across English and Japanese and you have a formula for pain aplenty. It will be better to have everyone on-line together, even if some are in the same office location. Make it a level playing field for all and save those stupid insider jokes, for when we all gather together again.

Noise on-line usually comes from people who are unmuted. This makes the communication difficulty factor rise and so do people’s tempers. Rustling papers, side conversations, dogs barking, etc., we all know how annoying this can be. The host needs to be aware of needing everyone to mute and to remind those who forget or are unaware they are not muted. Be polite and sympathetic, but stop proceedings and call on them to mute themselves. If they had any social awareness, they would be already be muted, so we are dealing with the unaware, rather than the uncaring.

People join the meetings at different times and are often late because they may have had technical issues connecting to the call. Audio is often the culprit. and we have to log in numerous times until the tech God smiles in our favour and let’s us join. Finally, we can hear what is going on, rather than trying to lip read the proceedings. We have to get going at the appointed time and not wait for people to join. We must also educate people to join the call 15 minutes early, to be able to provide a buffer so that people can log in.

Meetings need an agenda and usually some records are being kept either in writing or by recording the meeting. Preferably the agenda items to be discussed will have been distributed already, so people can bring their ideas to the meeting. If it is a regular meeting, the leader needs to remind everyone of the point of the meeting, to get alignment on expectations from the meeting.

The meeting opening is just like any other presentation in that it competes with a lot of noise going on in the head of the attendees. They are 100% fully occupied with things in their own world when they join the meeting and the leader needs to break through all of that clutter and get everyone focused. A strong opening is required that gets people to stop what they were doing and pay attention to what is being said. Distracting multitasking is a plague in its own right, during on-line meetings. Don’t leave things to random good luck - instead plan the opening well.

Hiding during meetings is also function of disengagement. It happens in real life as people sit there and don’t contribute, so it happens in the on-line world as well. The leader’s job is to get everyone engaged and paying attention. Because of the audio connection issues and varying internet stability, it is a good idea to be concise, avoid long monologues and check for understanding regularly.

If there is a slide show involved on-line, then the same standard presentation rules apply – keep the ratio to one idea per slide. Go zen like minimalist in slide design terms and work on the assumption that if the viewer cannot get the key point within two seconds, then the slide needs to be reworked and simplified. Often taking individual pieces of the content and breaking them off on to a separate slide will work wonders for increasing clarity.

Tech products like Webex and Zoom allow many more features than in the past. Breakout rooms, whiteboards, polls, chat boxes are some of the ways people can communicate on-line. If we were in a physical room, we might break into small groups to discuss a subject and now this is also possible when working remotely.

The systems also allow us to call on people for their input, just as we would in a typical meeting room. In Japan, it is a good idea to let people know this could happen and that just sitting there listening isn’t an option. It is always good to flag what is going to happen, so that everyone has some mental breathing room to prepare to participate. For example, “In a moment, I am going to invite some feedback”.

When people want to contribute, they need to introduce who is speaking. For example, when about to make a point say, “Greg here” or “Greg from Tokyo here”. Sometimes it is difficult to know who is speaking and often the people in the meeting may not know each other, so they can’t identify all of the other participants by voice.

Regular meetings need to be held and they need to complete their function - to inform, coordinate and plan. Keep the cadence of the meetings you held before, because the temptation is to drop them because things are now different. The driving reasons for holding meetings at all, have not changed and so the continuity is important.