Virtually Effective
By: Deshika Rodrigo
Tags: Teleconferencing, Leadership Skills, Business Consulting, Leadership, Business Efficiency

I recently attended a virtual meeting with over 50 participants. Although the topic was timely, several things went wrong: the host joined late; we were entertained by many ‘home’ noises in the background; people interrupted each other; the video quality was faulty; the chat feature was not used and, when the meeting ended, the host left the meeting before many of us! Clearly, video conferencing, virtual meetings and on-line learning are still new to us and we are yet to learn how to make them truly useful and effective.

Here’s the irony; a well conducted teleconference can be more efficient and effective than a face to face meeting. A poorly managed virtual meeting, on the other hand, is a complete waste of time and resources. Based on my experience hosting and participating in such meetings, here are some sure-fire recommendations to ensure that this new way of ‘virtual work life’ is useful, productive and effective:

Before the Meeting

1. Plan Ahead — in addition to sending a meeting invite and confirming attendance, your participants must know if they have to download an app to gain access to the meeting. Without this information, they may not know how to get in, could join late or just give up and not participate.

2. Background — you must remember that your camera will show your audience exactly what is behind and around you. So, select a place that is pleasant, uncluttered and well lit for your meeting (and not your unmade bed or bedroom, for example!). Although, some platforms do allow you to ‘blur’ your background.

3. DND — as the host, try your very best to ensure that you have a distraction and interruption free environment. Keep your kids, dog, phones, the TV (or anything that can disturb you), as far away from where you are conducting your meeting. You will achieve very little if your audience is entertained by interlopers rather than focused on the meeting!

4. Look the Part — depending on the type of meeting you are leading or participating in, how you present yourself does matter. As a general rule, when you are leading a virtual meeting from home, you are not expected to be dressed formally. However, for a meeting with clients or stakeholders, for example, you should at least be dressed semi-formally. For a meeting with your team or your students, on the other hand, being casually dressed is appropriate.

5. Share Material — sharing your agenda, reading material or presentation with your audience is essential for a virtual meeting. It will be a basis for people to follow along, get interested and clear up time to discuss the most important matters.

Note of caution: be mindful about inserting videos in your virtual presentation. I’ve seen many embedded video’s fail when accessed by many people using different internet bandwidth speeds.

During the Meeting

1. Turn the Camera On — This is possibly the most important aspect of conducting an effective virtual meeting. Using the video feature enables people to read each other’s interest levels, reactions and encourages them to pay attention to the meeting and resist multi-tasking. In other words, you are effectively ‘humanizing’ your meeting. As a compulsive multi-tasker, I am a 100% more focused at meetings when the camera is on. So, you must turn your own camera on and request your participants to do the same. Turning the video on will result in better teleconferences — guaranteed.

2. Control the Mute — Unmuting will be helpful when you want to hear responses from your audience and keep the discussion free-flowing. However, when you are speaking, place everyone on mute to block all background noise.

3. Break the Ice — just as you would when hosting any event, you should be ‘in the house’ before your guests arrive. Whilst waiting to commence the meeting, connect with your participants by welcoming them and engaging in friendly conversation. Remember, right now, every one of your participants are dealing with challenges in their lives. Therefore, it is essential to empathize with these people in order to create rapport and engagement.

4. Ground Rules — It is important to lay down the ground rules before commencing a virtual meeting for it to be effective. Participants must make a commitment to adhere to two fundamental principles: to be respectful of others’ time, and to be fully ‘present’. This would include not multi-tasking, not interrupting, using the chat feature (for questions or observations) and the symbols (like the ‘hand up’ signal) if someone wants to make a point about something.

5. Assign Tasks — Give participants various responsibilities during the meeting. To keep people engaged, have a different team member record the minutes of the meeting, track action items, assign owners and deadlines, and even come up with a fun activity at the beginning or conclusion of the meeting.

6. Engage — just like any other meeting or forum, your success as a host, facilitator, presenter or teacher, depends on how effectively you connect with your audience. With virtual meetings, this is more important as you are not directly facing your participants. Angle your camera so that you are making ‘eye contact’ and your audience can see you at a comfortable level. Work on creating an inviting atmosphere and help people to feel welcome, present and connected.

7. Body Language — as the host, your posture, smile, gestures and voice all matter. I tend to move my head quite a bit when I talk and it looks terrible on camera. Also, be conscious of fidgeting or accidentally touching your hair, face or nose — not appealing to watch!

8. Seek Feedback — unlike face to face meetings, it is hard to gauge reactions and body language in a virtual setting. Therefore, it is very important to regularly pause and ask if your participants have questions, comments or observations.

9. Collaborative Problem Solving — encourage participants to work together and seek each other out for advice, information and differing views to generate ideas and business solutions. Use the virtual break-out rooms for this.

10. Air Time — depending on the size of your group, try giving each person some time on the agenda to make a contribution. This generates better interest, participation and collaboration.

After the Meeting

1. Mind Your Manners! — As the host, you cannot leave the meeting before your guests! So, do thank everyone for participating and stay until the last guest leaves.

2. Meeting after the Meeting — After a meeting ends, I have often observed (and been invited to join) participants of the same meeting who congregate in little groups to vent their frustrations out to each other. You can avoid this by spending 5 to 10 minutes, at the end of the meeting, to have everyone say what they would have done differently during the meeting. Encourage people to be completely open and do not penalize anyone for speaking their mind, even if you disagree.

The Benefits of Virtual Conferences

Teleconferences are a quick, easy, and inexpensive way of getting people together. In addition, they offer the following benefits:

· Record it! — Most teleconference applications have a “record” feature that will capture the conversation as well as documents and other material presented during the meeting. Therefore, anyone who misses an important meeting can listen to the recording and be updated.

· Patching In — People such as subject matter experts can be patched in during the meeting to answer questions or offer their expertise on a particular topic. This saves time and enables people to participate when they are needed, regardless of their location.

· Break-out sessions — participants can go into ‘virtual break-out rooms’ for quick discussions; another time saving feature not present in regular face meetings.

· Enables WFH — remember, how you dragged yourself to work even when you were sick? Well, with teleconferencing, you do not have to do that anymore!

Whether we like it or not, virtual meetings are here to stay. So, doesn’t it make sense to maximize the use of technology and learn how to conduct and participate in virtual meetings effectively?

Deshika Rodrigo

Executive Coach, Women’s Motivational Speaker & HR Consultant

Deshikarodrigo47@gmail.com