A new habit (and a tool) for better online meetings
A new normal
In a post-COVID world, we have had to adjust to a new way of working and collaborating. More people work from home. More people work virtually. We are more distributed. We now meet via Zoom or other video-conference software. Now that people have become accustomed to working from home, this is likely to be the new normal from now on.
Like any new normal, this solves some problems while creating new ones. Some “meeting problems” have remained or even worsened. For example”
Some warning signs:?
The bottom line is that you no longer have a “captive audience” for your meetings. If you want to keep people involved, you will have to change the way you engage with them. As a leader, you need to become more facilitative.
What is a facilitative leader?
A facilitative leader is one who meets the team where they are and actively plans the HOW of the meeting, not just the WHAT. It requires you to meet people where they are, think about their needs, and prepare to connect in a way that keeps people engaged.
What do we all want from meetings?
Developing a new habit.
In 1960, a cosmetic surgeon called Dr Maxwell Maltz wrote a self-help book called Psycho Cybernetics, A New Way to Get More Living Out of Life. In his book he suggested that it takes a mere 21 days of practice for an old mental image of us to dissolve and a new one to “gel”.
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So how to develop a habit of engaging your team in online meetings? I recently started some conversations with leaders and facilitators to explore the question “How can we get people more engaged in an online world?” Specifically, I was interested in how leaders might bring new tools into the mix to get people more connected and engaged.
And we have a new habit for you. A way to connect and engage with your team, get them focused on what’s important, and help everyone get a better sense of the big picture and how their work fits together.
In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey recommends thinking about things in terms of urgent vs important. Urgent things are things that demand you attention, like a phone ringing or a knock at the door. These things may require immediate attention, but that does not mean they are important. Important things are things that create value in the long term. Things like exercise, health, financial stability and so on.
Some things are important enough, and low enough in effort or cost, that you want to drive them daily. Other things, while important, require you to be more selective about your time and energy investment. You might want to “work in” some things to your schedule, if time permits. And finally, some things might need to be delayed or ignored altogether.
And this new habit comes with a tool that you can use to introduce the habit to your team and return to it on a weekly basis to review and revise it: The weekly priority matrix template.
This is a great tool to get your team aligned on priorities and shared tasks. I predict that if you can make this a habit, you will find passive participants becoming more active, people will be more engaged, ideas will flow, all voices will be heard, people will feel more productive and more connected to the big picture.
Check out the template for free here: Weekly Priority Matrix.
Please let us know how it goes.
Here's the team that worked together to bring you this post and template: Sunni Brown, Danyelle De Jong, Dave Mastronardi, Ruud Janssen, Marc Bolick, Marc McLoughlin, Jim Kalbach, Manfred Gollent, Sunil Malhotra, Ben Crothers, and Patrick Van der Pijl. A round of applause please!
Senior Organizational Transformation Consultant. SAFe . Digital. Design Thinking. Agile. Lean. Program Consultant
2 年Thank you!
Customer Marketing & Advocacy (CMA) | Community | Customer Experience (CX) Former InVision, Blackbaud ?????
2 年People keeping their video off. I see this "risk" factor often. To the many incredible folks leading in the best workforce practices, this is not a risk and can benefit overall organizational health. Neurodivergent people or those with anxiety disorders may not be able to focus on the content of the meeting if they sit, concentrating on how they appear on camera. There are also socioeconomic and psychological safety concerns. Not everyone has a space that they are proud of and chose a job at your company to better their environment. Maybe they currently cohabitate with someone who can exhibit unpredictable behavior or intentionally tries to disrupt their work, or worse, get them fired, such as an abusive spouse. The future of work is here, but with it comes new risks for employees because work is now in the privacy of their own home. Whatever the reason, camera off is not a disruptive tell-tale sign of a disengaged employee. After all, we somehow made it through decades with only a telephone. I fervently believe we should not keep pushing this disconnected and outdated narrative.
Client Partner
2 年Molly Schonthal Hamlin (she/her) this reminds me of what you taught me to do :-) imagine if a team did this on a weekly or even monthly basis? Next. Level.
Certified Executive Coach
2 年This is great, Dave! I've been using the Eisenhower Matrix but this brings it back to a more actionable, in media res state.
CEO & Business Designer at Do Tank
2 年Thanks Dave Gray for bringing us together like this and generating such tangible output. Basic rapid prototyping in action....very enjoyable to experience with such a cool gang!! ??