Training by Design, Inc. - Leading a Successful Virtual or Hybrid Meeting

Leading a Successful Virtual or Hybrid Meeting by Dina Bell Nance, Chief Culture Officer

One of the greatest challenges that still exists in the Corporate world today is: “To Meet or Not To Meet” – What is the answer?

Before we address strategies for delivering a successful virtual meeting, let’s first determine if a meeting is mandatory. Can a brief email, a short phone call or a walk down the hallway to ask a few quick questions, suffice for the business need at hand. Also, are you also using your meetings to distribute project, corporate, human resource, benefit or key documents that can be placed in a shared drive or folder accessible by selected by all.

About five years ago, we had a powerful discussion with a long-term client who did not recognize how to truly lead and deliver a powerful and productive meeting that did not drag on for hours addressing topics that could distributed in a more efficient manner. Before we could share meeting strategies for our clients, we had to first move our discussions pass the topic of meetings and discuss how information is shared and disseminated in her organization?

We addressed their communication methods and the lack of processes they had in place for distributing key information in their company. Once we spent several weeks identifying and addressing a variety of strategies needed to address this challenge, we could then move on to discuss how to deliver successful meetings, that did not have to be bogged down with discussing all of the information that needs to be shared throughout the company.

As we continue to function in a virtual / hybrid format throughout the Corporate workspace, delivering successful and effective meetings is crucial. Consider using the following strategies below to plan and host your next successful virtual / hybrid meeting.

Identify the Purpose of the Meeting

One of the reasons most meetings are not effective, is because the leaders and/or facilitators are not extremely clear on the purpose of the meeting. Is your meeting designed to be informative, demonstrative, persuasive and or corrective! Or is it a combination of a few different types of meetings? Also, does the meeting need to occur weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc. Most important, are the invitees clear of the purpose of the meeting, or is this another attempt to bring folks together to discipline them on another list of items you are angry about in the workplace. Also, have the correct people been invited and are they clear on their role in the upcoming meeting.

Choose the Right Technology

Based on the purpose of your meeting, seminar or training session, select the most suitable platform to use. The best platform?for a quick "check-in" can differ from the right one for brainstorming or decision-making sessions.

You can choose from several virtual meeting platforms, including:

·????????Zoom : This platform?is a cloud-based video conferencing tool that lets you host?virtual?team?meetings, seminars and one-on-one sessions?easily with powerful audio, video and collaboration tools.

·????????Skype? : This offers basic online group phone and video calls, which work well for short update meetings or check-ins. You can also record calls for team members who can't attend.

·????????Citrix? GoToMeeting : With GoToMeeting, users can share screens, and the platform works on tablets, smartphones and other mobile devices.

·????????Cisco WebEx? : This platform offers HD video and allows participants to work together during the meeting.?

?Review each platform carefully before you decide which one to use. Some features, like web polling (which makes it easy to gauge people's opinions) or online whiteboards (good for group brainstorming sessions), can be worth the additional cost.

Create a Variety of Exercises

A virtual or hybrid meeting's success often depends on the guidance of the individual facilitating the meeting. Consider using exciting introductions, round robins, think tanks, breakout sessions for extensive meetings. Video’s and brainstorming exercises are also additional strategies that can be used to enhance your meeting.

?Prepare For Meeting

Virtual / Hybrid meetings may need?more preparation than regular face-to-face ones. Develop your plan for technology issues, difficult people and low attendance and involvement.

Also, have a clear plan for those that will be invited, what you need them to do prior to the meeting, how you plan to engage the attendees and what does success look like to you at the end of the meeting.

Create an agenda that is clear and concise and has time blocks around topics if you believe its needed.

Pick a meeting time that is conducive to different time zones for the leaders and staff members attending your meetings.

Assign roles to the meetings to include Facilitator, Note Take, Time Keeper, Tech Person, etc.

Don’t forget to setup plans to address and engage leaders and staff members that are attending the meeting in-person as well as have a clear plan to keep folks engaged that are actually attending virtually. Don’t ever have your back to the screen during the meeting. ?Ask questions to individuals in the room and on the screen and maintain eye contact as they respond back to you. Smile, nod and apply active listening skills to the attendees.?

Set Ground Rules

Ground rules are an important part of virtual and hybrid meetings because they guide the behavior of everyone attending. For instance, you might ask participants to log in to the meeting ten minutes early, so that everyone can connect?and check their audio and video.?You may also ask all attendees to keep camera’s on, keep the mute off until they have a question and to attend the meeting in a quite space with minimal distractions.

Implement Virtual Communication Skills In The Meeting

In face-to-face meetings, people pick up important cues from facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language. However, these are often lost in virtual meetings, which is why you need to take this into consideration when communicating with participants.?

Professional Attire: Reminder, even though you may attend a meeting virtual, your wardrobe should represent the professional environment of your office.

Organized and Neat Background for Virtual Camera: Your background represents your professional workplace during a virtual meeting. If you do not have time to create a neat space prior to the meeting, then consider selecting or creating a virtual background to use for business meetings.

No Eating in Virtual Meetings: Eating is a distraction and it is not a professional action on a camera unless everyone in the meeting is having a meal.

Arrive On Time: Remember, our arrival time is associated with the non-verbal cues we give off during our attendance in a Virtual / Hybrid meeting. Plan to attend the Virtual waiting room by 10 minutes prior to the start time prepared to attend the meeting.

Sit In A Professional Posture During Meeting: Your posture during the meeting is one of the greatest ways to display your focus to the topics at hand in the meeting.

Speak Clearly When Responding: When responding in the Virtual Meeting, speak clearly, look straight ahead, smile, nod and apply active listening skills.

?Engage and Ensure Everyone Is Involved

While we can’t make a person get involved, look involved and/or really participate with enthusiasm, but we can create such an environment and an experience, that they literally look forward to attending your meetings.

No, this type of experience does not have to happen in every meeting but there should be such a standard set by you and your leaders or facilitators that represents excellence around this topic.

One of the biggest challenges with virtual meetings is that participants can find it hard to get involved and contribute. Your job as the facilitator is to make sure that?team members have plenty of opportunities to speak up. Create questions, assessments, group exercises and chats that will promote involvement. We would also like to suggest that you also consider having a variety of different leaders and staff members speak on different topics in your meetings.

?Respectfully, Dina Bell Nance, Chief Culture Officer / Training by Design, Inc. / [email protected]