How can you improve virtual and hybrid communication?

While knowing your audience is helpful for customized and enhanced communication experiences, it is also important to establish expectations around response times. Each communication vehicle should have different priorities and everyone in the company should be aware of those response time expectations. For instance an email may have an 8 hour response expectation where a phone call may have an hour. Scheduling time with coworkers is the most ideal way to collaborate but when things pop up, having the right communication response expectations is critical to a great employee experience and optimized productivity.

Knowing your audience transcends choosing communication formats like emails or video meetings. It involves understanding their concerns, perspectives, and how decisions impact them. Effective communication requires considering how messages are perceived beyond the executive perspective. This calls for deep empathy and a "gemba walk" approach in understanding your team's diverse needs. With genuine care and effort to understand, leaders can tailor messages that truly resonate, ensuring communication aligns with the team's viewpoints.

I find it important to develop clear guidelines on when to use different communication tools, and have the stakeholders (people involved in that communication) agree on basic rules of engagement. However, resistance to certain tools like WhatsApp is not uncommon. This quick communication tool can sometimes blur the lines between personal and professional life. I see aversion all to often due to traditional beliefs of what is professional and appropriate. Sadly, this resistance can overlook the significance of cultural differences and the necessity to adapt to clients' preferences.

In the digital landscape, consider innovative channels beyond emails or video calls. Brief audio messages or personal videos can add clarity and a personal touch, showing your emotions and passion. These formats allow asynchronous consumption, enhancing flexibility. Reserve real-time interactions for genuine collaboration, like brainstorming, to make them more impactful. Using diverse methods judiciously ensures communication is effective and engaging, preventing the common critique that "This could have been an email."

The lack of traditional feedback we've come to expect from an engaged audience—nodding, eye contact, vocal agreement—can lead us to ramble long after we've made our point. We become flustered by the silence, or keep talking in circles to emphasize our point to assure ourselves that it's been made. Unless you're muted, you were heard. If there are questions, they'll be asked. Be explicit with expectations about how and when you'd like responses, and keep this awkward feeling in mind when you're part of a virtual audience.

Ok, so you may feel that WhatsApp, for example, is invasive and intrusive because it's right there on your phone, and how dare the people to send you a message at any time of day or a night (sense of being overly accessible), and you may sense you have no privacy. It takes a bit of self-discipline to adjust the notifications settings to mute during personal hours, during which you don't want to be disturbed; or simply do not open the messages from particular receiver during non-business hours; it can help to strike a balance. It's vital, though, not to blame the sender for utilizing specific communication channels. Instead, the responsibility lies in establishing and agreeing upon clear rules of communication upfront.

Here are my favorite ways to engage a virtual audience: - Encourage participants to grab an item that represents their leadership style, and share its story. This can quickly spark personal connections and conversations. - Have everyone take a quick, fun personality quiz before the meeting and share their results. - Ask participants to show a picture (that they’re comfortable sharing) that represents what’s most important to them. - Have participants choose a virtual background that reflects their current mood, interests, or dream vacation spot. This prompts excellent discussions. - End the meeting by asking participants to express how they feel after the meeting in one word. This helps me gauge meeting effectiveness.

It's easy for "executive presence" and "professional" to become stuffy and unapproachable. Lean into your humanity and those in your audience. So my top 3 suggestions: 1) Use a real story and moment that shows who you are and how you discovered something. Not academically, but experientially. 2) Ask for contributions where people want to say, Yes! Me too. Both camera and audio. And invite people in the chat to respond. 3) Have a posture of the chief learner. Acknowledge contributions and ask follow-ups so everyone is learning together. You will build more trust through genuine engagement with your audience.

The challenges of maintaining attention and rapport in these environments cannot be overstated. The strategies mentioned, like asking questions, soliciting feedback, storytelling, and using humor, are crucial for creating a dynamic and interactive communication experience. I particularly appreciate the emphasis on utilizing a range of tools – like polls, quizzes, and breakout rooms – to foster active participation. Leveraging voice, facial expressions, and gestures to convey emotion and enthusiasm is also a key aspect of effective virtual communication. This becomes even more critical when we lose the nuances of in-person interactions. Additionally, acknowledging audience contributions is fundamental in building a sense of community.

Adapting to feedback in virtual and hybrid settings demands mindfulness and presence from leaders. Eliminating distractions is key to fully engaging and capturing subtle verbal and non-verbal cues. In virtual environments, attentiveness to tone, volume, and participant engagement is crucial, given the limited interaction fidelity. By minimizing multitasking, leaders can ensure they're responsive to feedback, fostering meaningful exchanges and addressing every piece of feedback effectively.

While this isn’t limited to virtual or hybrid, it’s especially important since you’re less likely to have the incidental touch points that often come with proximity. Effective communication doesn’t happen in a single event. It’s a complex mix of multi-dimensional touch points and interpersonal relationships. Neither of those will be achieved if you communicate with an audience at a single event or through a single modality. You have to remember that by the time you’re communicating a message, you’ve been involved with that message in collaboration with other people for some time, especially at the executive level. While it can feel frustrating that people aren’t getting it, you need to remember that you didn’t “get it” right away either.

To improve virtual and hybrid communication, invest in quality technology and platforms like Zoom or Microsoft Teams for seamless interaction. Establish clear guidelines for virtual meetings, including camera usage and meeting etiquette. Use collaboration tools such as Slack or Trello to keep projects and conversations organized. Schedule regular check-ins to foster team cohesion and ensure everyone's voice is heard. Offer training on effective online communication and digital tools. Emphasize the importance of clear, concise communication to prevent misunderstandings and keep the team aligned.

It's so simpel but I still have the feeling it's worth to mention, that when talking so much about virtual and hybrid communication - it's totally fine to also do pure offline events or communication. If it's with clients or company inside, sometimes this will remain a good and right format. Today it's sometimes hard to argue to not have any way to participate hybrid but it's worth it. The benefits of pure offline can in most cases only be achieved without "disturbance" from hybrid participation.

Similar considerations apply to the long-standing debate about sending emails outside working hours. There are two predominant viewpoints: "Wait and Read" Approach: Some argue that if a person is unavailable during off-hours, there's no harm in sending an email. The recipient can read it the following workday. "Considerate Timing" Approach: Conversely, others contend that sending emails during non-working hours might inadvertently create pressure to respond. Instead, they advocate for scheduling emails for later delivery, respecting recipients' personal time. I am curious to hear what are different viewpoints from professionals according to their industry etiquette as well as cultural norms.

Virtual communication is more intentional and takes more mental effort than nodding at someone in passing. All communication takes effort, but we don't yet have the experience or conventions to make virtual communication feel instinctual. Make a list of those in your sphere of care and be mindful about reaching out to them on a regular basis. Say hello, ask how they're doing, send a GIF. Otherwise you'll only think of them when you need to, which likely means you need something from that person. In which case your interactions become strictly transactional, which in turn isolates others and causes them to be cynical of any communication from you.