What people struggle with the most when listening during a video conference

Thanks to Alison for this question – “As a host, how do I keep my audience engaged and listening during my video conference presentations? – I am especially interested in holding people’s attention when the group is large.”

Zoom has moved from a noun to a verb in the workplace.?

For a Zoom meeting Host, getting the most from you, the agenda, and the outcomes are a function of how well you create and curate an engaging environment for your participants.

Based on our research of meeting participants, there are many barriers to a productive and successful Zoom meeting including distractions, internet bandwidth, a small percentage of participants dominating the discussion, poorly communicated agendas and limited protocols about how the meeting should flow,

The number one reason participants don’t engage or provide discretionary effort during Zoom Meetings is they feel ignored, not listened to or their opinion doesn’t matter.

A video conference is a battle for attention.

Whether the meeting is short or long, small or large, intimate or interactive, you will come up against some very real barriers to listening.

?Humans are social creatures.

We have gathered, connected, and cooperated for millennia — you have evolved for face-to-face interactions in real life, rather than through a screen or the tiny black dot of a webcam.?

The good news is humans can adapt. We can mold and evolve our thinking and habits, altering the technology to serve us better. Video conferences are a permanent change to our working lives, it is time we started making technology work for us.?

As a Host, you have a responsibility to create an environment where video conferences are productive and impactful.?

As a host, you need to explore and notice.

• How to listen before, during, and after a meeting
• How to listen beyond words — to what’s unsaid, and listen beyond those present in the meeting
• How to listen to what people think and mean, rather than only what they say

The cost of not listening is unproductive meetings, wasted time, disconnection, confusion, conflict, misunderstandings, people feeling unheard and undervalued.

Good meeting Hosts listen to what participants say, and great meeting hosts listen to what isn’t said.

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Video Fatigue Is Real??

It’s not your imagination: virtual meetings are exhausting, and not just for introverts. You’re not alone if you log out of your last video call for the day and find yourself feeling completely drained.?

It’s much like going to the gym — if you’re lifting heavy weights or sweating it out in a cardio session for an extended period of time, it’s draining. Your body fatigues. The same thing happens to your mind during prolonged video conferences, and you end up with Zoom Fatigue.

In a study of more than 10,000 people, Stanford researchers identified the causes of Zoom Fatigue.

Excessive eye contact

During an in-person meeting, you don’t sustain eye contact the whole time. You might glance around the room, notice things in your peripheral vision, take a sip of water, take notes and move around in your chair.

On a video call, the amount of close-up eye contact you engage in dramatically increases.

You may feel increased pressure to constantly maintain eye contact to show you are focused.

On a larger call involving groups and teams, you may have several people looking at you at the same time, as if you were in front of an audience. Receiving this gaze increases your attention and arousal, which can be draining and leads to fatigue.

Host Tip:?

Invite participants to switch from Gallery view to speaker view. Encourage them to reduce the size of the active speaker window to between 25 to 33 percent of their screen.?

The mirror effect

Imagine how tiring it would be if somebody was following you around with a mirror all day so that while you were interacting with people, you were also seeing yourself.?

This is what video conferencing does. Zoom shows a square of what you look like on camera during a meeting. It is distracting, seductive attracting your attention and mentally taxing.

This heightened awareness of how you come across — what social psychologists describe as “self-focused attention” — can lead you to critique your performance based on how you appear. This can fuel feelings of anxiety and concern.

?Host Tip

When planning a meeting that is longer than normal, allocate time in the agenda for participants to switch off their webcams. If they want to speak, they can turn their camera on, which is a great non-verbal signal that someone is ready to contribute to a conversation.

Decreased mobility

In-person and audio phone conversations allow you to walk around and move. On a video call, your movement is far more limited.

You are usually seated, and if you have several back-to-back meetings, you can end up stuck in one position for a long time.?

You may feel physically trapped by the need to stay centered in the camera’s small field of view.

Host Tip

Start your meeting at 5 or 10 minutes past the hour or half-hour, rather than exactly at the hour. This gives attendees a moment to get up from the desk, and arrive refreshed. Our research highlights that these meetings finish earlier than the scheduled time and attendees are more engaged.

Increased cognitive load?

In a regular face-to-face interaction, non-verbal signals are ever-present. You make and interpret gestures and non-verbal cues continuously and subconsciously.?

In video meetings, you only have available from the shoulders up. Your mind starts to anticipate and guess what else is happening based on historical patterns. Now, you need to work harder to send and receive signals.

Smiles, head nods, eyebrow movement becomes exaggerated to signal that we agree or understand, but because of the small field view of the camera, you can only really communicate using the face and shoulders.

Your brain is used to interpret the movements of the whole body, so it tries to complete this image. This requires more cognitive load and leads to increased fatigue.

Host Tip

Switch it up every 15 minutes. Use different modalities such as a change in active speaker, move from presentation mode to interview mode, use pre-recorded audio and video, Zoom’s interactive functions including chat, polls, annotation, and breakout rooms to help people communicate in different ways.

Gender differences?

The Stanford researchers found Zoom fatigue takes a higher toll on women than men.

Overall, one in seven women (13.8 percent) reported feeling “very” to “extremely” fatigued after Zoom calls, compared with one in 20 men (5.5 percent). Women have the same number of meetings per day as men, but their meetings:

• Tend to run longer
• Are more likely to be back-to-back?
• Are less likely to be broken up by breaks

These factors correlate with higher fatigue and can be significant barriers to effective listening.?

Women, more than men, reported concern and distraction when asked about their reaction to seeing themselves on a Zoom call.?

Flexibility is the key. When you’re listening to the room, you need to be conscious of the fatigue present, and be able to respond accordingly.

The essential listening technique during a meeting is the location of the Host’s attention.

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Host Tip

If you asked the Participants questions before the meeting, ask the arriving Participants who did not answer their thoughts. Share what you heard from other Participants that responded to the question and will appreciate and engage with your summary and reflection on the questions.

Reference their Name and answers during the meeting to reinforce their importance.?

Supporting what they answered will encourage them to contribute during the balance of the meeting. It promotes more attuned listening from the Participants as they listen carefully to hear if their thoughts are mentioned either by the Host or others in the Group.

Host Tip

Although you might start as the Host of the meeting, promoting one or more of the Participants as a co-Host will help you listen from a different orientation. I recommend this for meetings that are more than 45 minutes as a way for the Participants to tune their attention differently.?

?This should be planned rather than a surprise for a Participant during the meeting.?

Host Tip

You have many non-verbal tools and techniques available to help you and the Group to listen to each other during the video conference.

Reactions including ? ? ? ?

? The Raised Hand is a simple and under-utilized way to queue the next and subsequent Participants without them fearing their opinion will be missed or ignored. The Host sets the Listening Environment through clear and consistent use of Verbal Queueing.

? The Tick can be used to gauge the response of the Participants to a concept or to the energy in the room

? Slow Down or ?Speed Up - Each option is available to gauge and engage the pace relative to the audience. It is critical that as a Host you use your judgment about if and when you ask the Participants for these signals.?

Chat

Chat on purpose - Ask these questions to design a chat that helps the Group rather than the Host

1.?Is it aligned to the Purpose of the meeting?

2.?Is something ALL Participants can easily and or comfortably answer? (Low risk & inclusive)?

3.??Is it something that ALL Participants want to read, contribute and reflect on because it helps the Group purpose?

?Don’t speak while you are asking the Participants to complete their comments

Invite the Participants to read the comments of ALL the Group before starting to engage this Group. This is the fastest and most efficient way for the Group to listen to themselves simultaneously

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Regularly reflect back by Name and comment to an item mentioned in the Chat that is relevant to the point and the agenda

Polls - Zoom - This is a quick and clear video from Zoom on how a Poll looks to a Host and how to create them either before or during a meeting.

Polls are a great way to help the Group allocate, prioritise, and ultimately to notice the range of perspectives across ALL Participants.

Polls are an effective way to listen and engage highly rational or reserved Participants.

This is a more thorough and set by step explanation from Cat Mulvihill via a 15 minute video

Polls - Non-Zoom including Kahoot, Mentimeter, Poll Everywhere,?Slido

If you would like to Poll the Participants as part of the Breakout Room, you might wish to utilize these applications.

Transcription or Closed Captions My strong recommendation is to use Live Transcripts by default. It allows the Participants an opportunity to quickly scan and regain the context and flow when they are distracted, mishear, misunderstand, or there is a transmission issue because of connectivity to what you said.

If you are dealing with an audience when the business language isn’t the Participants first language, transcripts create a fast way to create meeting notes and action plans.

Visualization - Non-Zoom including Miro & Mural

There are many ways to use this 3rd party Visualization and collaboration before, during and after the meeting.

These tools can collaboratively define the agenda, integrate and document progress in the main meeting room and the Breakout Rooms and become a compelling artefact after the meeting, especially when invited Participants who can’t attend or need to leave early.

Remember your role as the Host, is to listen to the Group and ensure Participants listen to each other.

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Host Tip

If you are a Host for a Broadcast Meeting, you can create a Poll to understand the knowledge or understanding of the Group at the start of your presentation.

As a result of listening, you can adapt what and how you present for the balance of the Broadcast.

Consistently reference the Poll results and insights to the Audience during the Presentation and connect the thread to create a memorable experience.

?Host Tip

If you take the time to collect the Poll information from the Audience, ensure you share the final results with the Audience.?

?The results are not for Host or Participants - the results are for the Audience to listen to the range of perspectives in the Webinar.

Alison – below is my summary of the quick host tips, if you would like to register your interest in The Ultimate Guide to listening during a video conference – over 50 pages of techniques and settings - simply open the link and let me know.

Before the video conference

1. ?Drink a glass of water.
2. Take three deep breaths.
3. Turn off instant messaging or email notifications, along with any phones or devices you don’t need to use for the meeting.

During the video conference

1. Change modality every 10 minutes – breakout, chat, polls, videos, Q&A even another speaker
2. Choose how you use your body and the technology.
3. Decide how long you want to sit without moving.

After the video conference

1. The difference between hearing and listening is action – commit and deliver to the required actions
2. Reflect on how the Broadcast went

• What was successful?
• What would you do differently?
• How do you think participants felt after the meeting?

Great listening is a learning process. Be willing to take action where it’s needed to improve the experience next time.

I’m sure like Alice, Alison, Bettina, and Stuart – you have questions about listening in the workplace - Send me an LinkedIn InMail with the Subject Line H2L and your question and I’ll be happy to answer it – either privately or via LinkedIn.

Thanks for listening

PS – Thanks for reading all the way to the end.

As a bonus and if you would like to explore this topic in more detail, I have interviewed two global experts on how people behave during video conferences

Podcast Episode 088: How to listen in a video meeting with Professor Sheryl Brahnam

Podcast Episode 094: Zoom fatigue and exhaustion – how it negatively impacts women more with Dr Anna Carolina Muller Queiroz