Answering 9 Questions About Making Virtual Meetings Better: Leveraging Meeting Science

An estimated 55 million meetings occur a day. Sadly, my research suggests only around 50% of meeting time is effective and engaging. Unfortunately, these effectiveness numbers drop lower when it comes to virtual meetings. An intriguing twist: when we surveyed people and asked whether they preferred attending virtual meetings or face-to-face meetings, the majority say the virtual meeting. Why would people prefer something that they evaluate as being so poor? The answer: so they can multitask. Clearly, this speaks to the increased difficulty of leading a virtual meeting.

In this article, I leverage meeting science to tackle 9 questions about how to make remote meeting time more valuable and engaging. More content around remote meetings and additional resources can be found on my website, stevenrogelberg.com and in my book, the Surprising Science of Meetings.

1.    Whom to invite? Only people that truly need to be there. It is not hard for us to identify “must have” attendees versus “nice to have” ones. Let’s just focus on the “must haves” when we call the meeting together. Remote meetings decrease in quality with size. Instead of over inviting, consider recording your virtual meeting. Give nonessential members a break and just share the recording with them. To avoid team members who weren’t invited from feeling marginalized, provide the opportunity to attend future meetings on the topic.  It is rare that they will take you up on the offer, but the option will be appreciated.

2.    How long should the meeting be? Given shorter attention spans right now, consider shortening your meetings to 20 minutes, 25 minutes, etc. Don’t just default to the hour-long meeting, unless absolutely necessary. Decreasing the meeting time also generates positive pressure. Namely, groups operating under some level of pressure actually perform better given additional focus and urgency.

3.    How should I create an agenda to drive success? As opposed to a set of topics to be discussed, try organizing the agenda as a set of questions that need answered. This creates focus and clarity in purpose of the meeting.  Invite only those that are relevant to the questions at hand.  By framing agenda items as questions, you know when to end the meeting. The meeting has been successful when or if the questions have been answered. 

 4.    How do I create more presence in the virtual meeting? Creating “presence” is important in remote meetings, especially given the multitasking concern noted above. Strongly encourage attendees to use video. We want attendees to be actively engaged. Video increases the chances of that happening. 

 5.    How do I get the meeting off to a good start?   As the meeting leader, your mood state makes a difference. It sets the stage. In fact, some research suggests a contagion effect, where attendee mood mirrors that of the leader . So, start the meeting with some drive and energy. Express appreciation and gratitude for attendees’ time. This increases the chances of a more positive meeting mood state, even when discussing difficult issues. Positive mood increases group creativity, engagement, and decision making. Also, don’t be late. Nothing kills momentum at the start of a meeting like a delay. Presenters should log in 5 minutes early to assure all technology is working as needed. 

6.    During the virtual meeting itself, is there anything different I need to do?  Fully embrace the mindset of being a steward of others time. With a stewardship mindset, you honor and respect the time of attendees. Leaders often adopt a stewardship mindset when meeting with important stakeholders, as the thought of these folks leaving the meetings saying “that was a waste of time” is unsettling. Unfortunately, stewardship is often neglected when meeting with team members and/or direct reports. You should always strive to be an active meeting facilitator, regardless of who attendees are. Draw people in (e.g., “Sandy, please share your thoughts”) to keep attendees engaged.  Consider maintaining a tally to be sure all voices are heard. Instead of saying “any questions or comments”, call on people by name to share thoughts. Also, don’t let people go off track; kindly interrupt and redirect if necessary. After all, that is your job as a meeting leader. 

7.    Any unique approaches I can use to make my virtual meetings even better?Research supports the benefits of leveraging silence in meetings as a way of gathering more ideas, perspectives, and insights from attendees. For example, if you compare groups brainstorming in silence (e.g., typing into a shared document) versus those brainstorming with their mouths, silent brainstorming groups produce nearly twice as many ideas. Those ideas also tend to be more creative. Why would silent brainstorming result in more and better ideas? When communicating via writing, all can “speak”  at the same time. There is no waiting for your turn. Plus, there is less filtering of ideas given the simultaneous generation of thoughts. Fortunately, silence can be done very easily in a virtual meeting. Just share Google doc with attendees during the actual meeting and ask folks to mute themselves as they contribute. This type of approach is particularly good for update-type meetings. Instead of everyone going around the “table” giving a verbal update, folks can just type into the shared doc simultaneously. They can read everyone else’s input, keying in on particular information of relevance and making comments and connections. Afterwards, the leader could call out certain themes if needed. This process tends to result in updates taking less time, but having more impact in the form of identifying synergies.  Silence is also helpful with problem-solving meetings. Again, you share a Google doc with all attendees. The document contains key questions that need to be answered (e.g. agenda items) or prompts for brainstorming. All participants are encouraged to contribute to the document for, say, 10 minutes or whatever makes sense for the task at hand. During this window, attendees are actively generating ideas, commenting on others inputs, and basically collaborating actively via writing. Once the time period is up, the leader has a few options. The leader can debrief in real time - identifying themes, conclusions, and next steps. Or, if outcomes are not fully apparent, the meeting can end for now. The leader can then take time to go through the document and see what emerged. They can then follow up with the team, sharing general conclusions or next steps with attendees in an email.

8.    How do I get attendees rowing in the same direction? Establish agreements with your attendees about what makes for an effective virtual meeting. How can we expect our virtual meetings to be successful, if we never discuss what we want to see from each other during these meetings? Get a set of norms out there, like “let's keep all contributions short so everyone has a chance to speak.” Or, “if you want to chat, raise your hand or note it in the chat box.” 

9.    How do I end a meeting?  Before folks depart, clarify takeaways. For each action or decision made, identify the DRI - directly responsible individual. Make sure folks are aware of what they are personally responsible for. Also, establish timelines and clear expectations for next steps.

Virtual meetings are incredibly hard to lead. Success can be elusive. However, careful thought can turn your remote meetings into efficient and engaging events. Take the challenge of being the type of meeting leader you would want to see in others. Take the challenge of fixing meetings -- one meeting at a time. And, hopefully over time your stewardship choices will become the norm we see in all meeting leaders.

See here for a short video of some key remote meeting practices

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkoCNJVrd04

Steven G. Rogelberg is the Chancellor’s Professor at the University of North Carolina Charlotte for distinguished national, international, and interdisciplinary contributions and the author of The Surprising Science of Meetings: How You Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance (Oxford University Press, 2019).  To schedule a webinar with him, learn more about him, and have access to free meeting resources visit Stevenrogelberg.com.  Follow him on LinkedIn at https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/rogelberg/.