Managing Remotely in a Crisis: Element 3 of 8: Improving Video Meetings

This is my 3rd article in the series on Managing Remotely in A Crisis. In our first article, we tackled the issue of having the right infrastructure of security, apps, and tools to make it easy and safe to work remotely. In our second article, we focused on the issue of very high employees understanding in clear quantifiable language what you expect from them - an issue we should have been working on long ago - which becomes amplified with folks working remotely.

Suddenly all our senior staff and managers are conducting video meetings on a variety of platforms – all without the benefit of training or a suggested list of action steps. We just assume because they could lead a meeting in the office, they should be fine doing it remotely.

Unfortunately, that’s not the truth. I’ve sat in on a lot of video meetings over the past 6 weeks and I’ve been turned off, bored out of my mind, and dumbfounded by the lack of basic effective video meeting guidelines. I find it comical what some people tell me they are doing while the video call is in progress. Perhaps, you’ve seen these cartoons and memes on the Internet – where maybe 2 percent is directed at the content/information in the meeting.

This level of apathy or boredom toward what’s being delivered can partly be attributed to the quality of the props – like a slide deck, the strength of the agenda, and the capability of the facilitator. Perhaps, giving your managers and senior staff a remedial course in delivering online meetings might be in order.

10 Best Practices for Running Remote Video Meetings:

1. Have everyone lean into showing their face instead of an avatar or blank screen. I realize some people. It keeps people focused on the meeting instead of other distractions (squirrel?) Have people dress like they would for the office and work with them on their home set-up (proper background, hardware, security issues).
2. Have a tight agenda with timeframes by each agenda item. Send it out at least 24 hours in advance. Can assign homework, reading, prep work before the meeting to make it more productive?
3. Start and end on time. Extending a meeting due to late arrivals sets a bad precedent and creates a group norm that meetings start late. One or two people should not hold everyone else hostage.
4. As the facilitator, be aware of different personality styles. There is a tendency for the extroverts to run over the introverts. Make everyone feel welcome, safe, and comfortable by specifically asking questions of each team member, especially those that are not actively participating in the conversation. Maybe this is a good time for everyone to take a personality profile and work through the team communication styles.
5. Every 10 minutes, take a pulse of the group by asking questions, calling on individuals, doing an informal survey, going around the virtual table.
6. Have one or more of the members present information vs. listening to the facilitator drone on endlessly. Mixing it up makes it much more interesting.
7. Set group norms for what is acceptable behavior during a video meeting, especially the part about NOT multi-tasking during the meeting. Stress the importance of being “present.” I recommend a policy of closing other windows, putting the phone away, not answering emails during meetings.
8. Polish up your PowerPoint slides. I have been paying a lot of attention to the slides used in these presentations and I’m ready to start snoozing just minutes after they start. Remember the statement “death by PowerPoint?” Perhaps, a little training or guidance on developing compelling, interesting, and powerful presentations to support video meetings should be on the list of training needs.
9. Is this meeting necessary? We’ve now moved to the phase of “zoom fatigue” with a video meeting after meeting. Ask yourself is this meeting necessary? Could we solve the issues through our chat tool, like Yammer or Slack? Are we publishing a meeting schedule of 1-to-1s, CEO broadcasts, morning coffee breaks, afternoon check-ins, formal team meetings, and fun events, like games, lunch-and-learns, birthday celebrations, happy hours? Perhaps, one a week should be for NO meetings.
10. Consider using video meetings beyond performance/status updates. Consider using video meetings to improve your culture, team building, employee engagement, recognition, and bonding. Hundreds of ideas have been published on using video and chat tools for strengthening teams and building work relationships.

Did I miss any key areas of running Video Meetings? What’s your favorite idea, guideline, or tactic?