High-quality hybrid isn’t happening – yet

If we demonstrated anything during the pandemic, it was tremendous learning agility. A workforce that could rarely get in-room-conferencing technology to work became expert remote collaborators overnight. We turned on our cameras, learned how to screen-share, and made side commentary using chat. Some of us even managed to incorporate polling and annotations into our standard practice.

And what is the net result of all that progress? Well, in my recent observation, it’s not that great. Hybrid meetings are kind of a disaster. While the technology is significantly better than pre-pandemic, the human behavior has regressed.?

My hypothesis is that we’re operating from the belief that what we learned in an all-remote environment set us up for success with hybrid. Sure, connecting those in conference rooms with remote participants is an important step, but so much more is needed to support real high-quality hybrid collaboration. Which, by the way, is the whole point of meetings…

Here are three critical success factors for high-quality hybrid:

Discipline on the part of in-room participants. I can’t say it enough, side conversations are just not ok. The remote participants end up hearing a jumble of multiple voices, making everything inaudible. And no, whispers don’t work either. That high-quality audio you installed last year picks up everything!

Intentional design to support inclusion. The remote participants have a world of multitasking temptation at their fingertips. If the conversation is unstructured or lacks energy, they’ll start to give in to it. The meeting leader is accountable for engaging everyone and using their time well. It helps to have a clear sense of why you invited each person and to reference it out loud at the start of the meeting. This helps set the engagement of remote participants and primes them to stay tuned in.

Leveraging the interactive benefits of videoconference platforms. Just because some participants are together in a room doesn’t mean you have to abandon the interactive benefits of the platform. Incorporate them into the shared experience. That means everyone who is physically together needs to be logged into the meeting too, so that they can participate and so that remote joiners can see facial expressions and non-verbal cues.

I know, I know. Why does it have to be this hard? Because it is. High-quality hybrid requires intentionality. The good news is that once you get into the habit, it will become almost effortless. You just have to get there, one "you're on mute" at a time.