How to See Eye to Eye in Meetings

When you’re in a meeting, chances are you’re considering what is being said, and how to express your own ideas. However, completely different techniques are involved in controlling how the other participants in the meeting will receivewhat’s being said. 

Eye contact is a much more important part of meetings than you probably realize. You see, the way you verify that other people are following your reasoning is by looking at their eyes. 

If somebody lowers their eyebrows, you’ll know that what you said troubled them, or that perhaps they didn’t quite understand. If somebody squints at you, you’ll know he’s doubtful about what you said. And if somebody meets your gaze with open eyes and a subtle nod, she’s letting you know she’s understood, and that you can keep going. 

You know intuitively that if somebody looks you in the eyes as you speak, he’s interested in the conversation. You also know that if he looks over your shoulder, it means he’s not interested. 

Decoding these signals is a necessary condition for your conversations to go smoothly on the whole, and doing so can be your most useful tool in important meetings. Unfortunately, we often eliminate these signals from meetings, as it has become a common practice to bring a computer or smartphone along to them. 

It can be incredibly useful to have access to a computer during a meeting; if somebody asks a question, you can google the answer for them, you can enter that budget figure somebody just mentioned into an Excel sheet or database right away, and you can always type notes instead of writing them with a pen.

But suppose you make a pause in your presentation, to make sure that everybody in attendance is keeping up, and all you see is lowered heads in front of lit screens–how should you interpret that? There’s no way for you to tell if they’ve truly been listening, and if so, if they’ve understood you, or if they’ve all just zoned out and decided to try to beat their Motherload high scores.

Find the courage to ask your meeting participants to close the lids of their laptops, or structure your meetings in such a way that computers won’t be needed. Your communication has everything to gain if you do.