How to Be Productive On Zoom. Or Not.
By: Marne Platt
Tags: Office, Work From Home, Work, Meetings, Productivity

I Zoom, therefore I am?

Photo by visuals on Unsplash

Not only is 2020 the year of COVID-19, face masks and social distancing, it has become the year of the virtual meeting. With most of us working from home, managers have tried to maintain connections and culture by meeting over Skype, Google Hangout, or Zoom. Some of us spend 6, 8, or even 10 hours a day in meetings, squeezing in actual work between or during our video calls.

In August, Zoom reported that the number of customers with more than 10 employees was up 458% (yes, four hundred and fifty eight percent) over the previous period. It’s the platform of choice for everything from catching up with your boss to marking the return of Major League Baseball, with a massive singalong of ‘Take Me Out to The Ballgame.’

Zoom can help us stay connected, find clients, raise money, find a job, stay employed. Or it can be a terrible waste of time.

A rough and entirely unscientific survey of my friends and colleagues resulted in the estimate that at least 40% of their Zoom meetings were of no value whatsoever. Instead of improving our productivity while we work from home, these meetings reduce it, until the time flows like cold molasses poured over pancakes — excruciatingly slowly.

Our complaints came down to four topics.

Why are we meeting?

Photo by Sam Balye on Unsplash

What is the purpose? Is this a meeting to share information, make a decision, or just connect? Topics that would normally have been handled by email, text, chat, or a shared cup of coffee are now used as excuses to meet.

Some examples: reviewing standard slide decks, checking project review status, discussing planned days off. One woman’s manager calls meetings to decide when they can have meetings. Each of these was scheduled an for hour or more. Productivity? None!

Dear managers, if you want to know whether we are alive, call or chat us. Don’t waste our time with useless meetings.

Rule number 1: If you don’t need active, contemporaneous discussion, you don’t need a meeting.

Convey information efficiently with a well-scripted email or a video clip. Respect your employees enough to let them work this into their own schedules; don’t call them together like schoolchildren to the assembly room.

Why am I here?

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

The second most common complaint was poor meeting organization. We wondered why we were invited to informational meetings in which we had no interest, or were expected to participate in decision-making meetings when we had nothing to contribute. My personal favorite was being invited to a decision-making meeting in another department, about a project I would only touch if this group and one other approved it. When I declined the invitation, the organizer told me I needed to be more engaged. I laughed, and still did not attend. And the project? Killed before I ever would have touched it.

Another complaint included under this umbrella is poor pre-meeting preparation. We all hate showing up at a meeting with nothing more than the subject (‘Meeting on Project X’) and the attendee list.

Send specific, detailed agendas in advance, preferably with the invitation. Send comprehensive pre-reads, if required, at least 1 day before the meeting, preferably two or more days. It’s impossible to have a productive meeting of more than 2 people without them.

If your meeting is for social time, just to keep colleagues connected when we are all far apart, make it an optional meeting. Don’t force people to break their work flow to share a virtual cup of coffee.

Rule number 2: If you don’t need me, and I don’t need your information, don’t invite me. If you do need me, give me the tools I need to be useful.

Why is this taking so long?

Image by DTS

When you build a realistic agenda, provide appropriate pre-reads, and invite the right people, you don’t need to spend a lot of time babbling.

Yet everyone I spoke with complained of long, meandering speeches, side conversations that hijacked the main discussion, and weak meeting facilitation. Even if the topic is important and the right people are online, a poorly run meeting is a waste of time and brainpower.

Rule #3 Whatever amount of time you think you need, cut it down. Short meetings focus the mind.

Most meetings can be 55, 45, or even 30 minutes, not 1 hour. Use the parking lot concept to set aside items that are off-topic. Hold people accountable for preparing. One of my previous leaders used to say, ‘if you had prepared, you would know that the answer to your question is on slide X.’ POW! That’s accountability!

If you are the facilitator or meeting leader, you must be the best prepared. Don’t run your meetings like a stream-of-consciousness novel. You will only confuse and annoy your attendees.

Virtual meetings should follow the same rules as in-person meetings: Prepare thoroughly. Listen when others speak. Tell the ugly truth. Disagree respectfully. Work together to implement team decisions — no post-meeting ‘shark attacks’.

Where do we go from here?

Image by Author

As with face-to-face meetings, what happens after the meeting is as important as what happens during the meeting. It might even be more important, as you can’t just drop by Jeanette’s desk the next day and ask her what she said about customer interfaces. My survey group bemoaned the absence of clear and timely minutes, with key points, decisions, next steps and responsibilities, and a plan for follow up.

Rule #4: It’s not over till the actions are done.

Keep up the momentum after the meeting. Issue minutes within 3 days of the meeting. Assign each action a responsible person and a due date. Follow up as needed.

If you just push updates into the ether, nothing will happen. Even the best meeting will prove to have been a waste of time.

Respect your time…and theirs

Photo by Gerd Altmann on Pixabay

Before you schedule your virtual next meeting, ask yourself these questions:

Do I need a meeting? Why? What will it accomplish? Who is essential? What is the purpose? How will I help people prepare? What’s the follow-up plan?

If you can’t answer these questions, leave me alone. I have work to do. If I can just get out of this next meeting….

Thanks for reading. You might also like: