‘Chatisfaction’ guaranteed

There have been massive advances in video technology to support our workplace interactions, but many maintain that video meetings are still a poor substitute for face to face communication.

It has always been hard to hold people’s attention when they are not in the same room and unfortunately attendees sometimes see virtual meetings as a license to multi-task. Given we can’t demand attention, we need to create structured opportunities for attendees to voluntarily engage fully. Otherwise, we are in danger of seeing more and more instances where someone is called upon to provide a view and they respond with ‘sorry I didn’t quite get that’ which is usually code for ‘I was concentrating on something else entirely’

One of the ways to ensure active involvement is by encouraging the supplementation of Video meetings with the chat facility. While its arguable whether this really brings us closer together, there are some notable advantages for instance: -

Increased Engagement by the participants

Participants can connect and exchange ideas within the chat function which adds to the richness of the conversation.

Polling

Most platforms offer a facility to take the pulse of the room via the polling feature which can be easily accessed via the chat functionality.

Likes

Even where an ‘official’ poll is not invited, participants can express the fact that they are in favour of a particular idea within the chat function which then helps the chair/facilitator gauge what the group want to discuss or where consensus lies.

Extending the Exchange

The chat can persist long after the main session has ended and this no doubt ensures that views continue to be expressed, ideas exchanged, and the time bound session extends way beyond its allotted slot. There is much to be said for this.

However, the chat function is not without challenges. Some notable ones are: -

Participation

Can we both follow the person who has got the virtual microphone and also incorporate into that the views being expressed on chat? There can be little doubt that concentration on one detracts from attention to the other. It is also inevitable that a speaker looking at the chat whilst speaking and being encouraged by positive comment may also be thrown off course by negative or challenging posts.

Misinterpreted emoticons

In a meeting I was part of recently, someone asked another participant (within the chat) why a promise made previously had not been fulfilled. There were several emoticons in response to the question from people in the session. What confused me was the fact that one attendee responded with an angry face – was he angry at the fact the promise hadn’t been fulfilled, angry at the fact that the question was asked at all, angry at other comments being made or just plain angry? The potential for confusion and misinterpretations is vast.

Tools such as hand lifting

These may be polite and good meeting etiquette but are we also in danger of stifling free flowing conversation? Here then is my confession – When facilitating, I have a difficulty with seeing hands raised for an extended period because it reminds me of a tactic that was employed by someone close to me many years ago. If we ever got into an argument, his view was that one person would speak (uninterrupted) for as long as they wanted and this could be up to 5mins before the other person could put their side of the argument. Whilst this is actually a good tactic for avoiding interruption, it was achingly frustrating for me because by the time it got to my turn to put forward my side of the argument I would have partially forgotten the point I was trying to make or a lot more had transpired making it impossible to raise my previous point without referencing later thoughts. It made for a very unsatisfactory debate ??. It was also a power lever - power belonged to the one who made the ‘opening submission’. Whilst useful for maintaining order in a session, the hand raising functionality may have a negative effect in some cases. We now have even more functionality on platforms like Teams to clap, laugh, Like and so on – and it’s so easy to press the wrong one! More room for confusion.

Fringe meetings

In a ‘physical setting attendees whispering to each other is not only distracting but annoying, but this is harder to stem in a virtual meeting especially where having cameras on is optional. There is a danger that decisions will be made at the fringe or that multiple conversations will take place in the same Virtual room. Isn’t engaging in a secondary chat (not the one seen by all attendees but by direct chat or even WhatsApp) a bit like whispering to each other?  

Feedback vacuum

A friend of mine who is a teacher was telling me a couple of days ago that the worst thing about teaching in the virtual classroom is not knowing what is happening at the other end of the camera. We can all identify with this because although we are not teaching and are not always presenting, we need connection with each other and the ability to read body cues is a fundamental element of interpersonal communication so in a meeting where we ‘can’t see’ each other or where we can only scan the postage-stamp-sized images of the other participants, this can be a block to effective communication.

Judged by ‘Likes’

Following in the steps of popular social media platforms, video conferencing platforms like Teams and Zoom introduced ‘Likes’ (and other functionality) which allows us to both validate and communicate our support but ironically the absence of Likes could also be misconstrued to mean there isn’t consensus on a particular point made etc.

So, how do we conclude?  

I think most of us accept that some aspects of work are more difficult than they were before the pandemic and in some cases (face to face meetings for now at least) impossible. But there are things we can do better and faster. We need to embrace and explore the new world in which we find ourselves but in all things, we need balance to ensure that we do not allow technology to dictate our behaviour but use it judiciously and intervene to allow reason and intuition to guide what we do otherwise we are in danger of inadvertently sabotaging what can be a really useful resource/ tool.  Almost 3000 years ago the Greek poet Hesiod advised ‘observe due measure; moderation is best in all things’ – Could he have dreamed that that he was writing for the Virtual communication era?