As the COVID-19 virus continues to disrupt business as usual, many people are getting to grips with working from home for the first time, especially those in social organisations. In-person meetings remain the gold standard for productive conversations but conference calls have now become a required way to meet with people. While technology, especially web conferencing, has enabled conference calls to be easier to have, the truth is that effective conversations using this channel is a challenge. We put together some thoughts on how to overcome this challenge and drive successful online meetings.
It shouldn’t make a difference to the content if meetings are held remotely or in-person. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. Most meetings have a certain flow to them and disrupting that flow can derail a meeting. This is all the more apparent in meetings where you can see people. In remote meetings, it becomes harder for participants to discreetly ask each other on points for clarity or see the overall picture by reading the room. Meeting organisers, and to an extent participants, must make extra effort to ensure that their remote meetings are a success.
We’ve put together some thoughts on how to overcome this challenge and make conference calls work for you and drive productive conversations.
1. Send through pre-reading materials before the meeting
By sending through pre-reading materials before the meeting, you can spend more time talking about the materials and make decisions on them. If participants are going to see the material for the first time at the meeting, there is a risk that the flow of the meeting might be disrupted as people familiarise themselves with the material during the meeting. When people have a chance to prepare for the meeting, they will know what to expect and what is expected of them.
Set the expectation for pre-reading beforehand. This means explicitly informing and reminding people to read the materials before the meeting. Reminders are important to help participants make time to do the necessary reading. All too often, most participants will not have read the pre-read material and hope to wing it through the meeting. A meeting organiser should ensure that everyone has had that opportunity though to read the pre-read material that will help them through conference call.
For the control freaks, uploading a document onto a shared file repository, such as Google Docs or Dropbox, often lets you track who has read the material and who hasn’t, allowing you to follow up with reminders as needed.
Sending over materials before the meeting also alleviates any possible technical issues that might crop up over a conference call. Web conferencing allows people to share their screens but a host of technical issues may crop up such as lag and resolutions issues that pixelate the content to make it unreadable. A meeting’s flow can be severely disrupted if people have to wait for other people to download material as attention spans aren’t the greatest during a conference call.
2. Set expectations when video conferencing
Video conferencing is a great tool to help participants deepen their engagement with the meeting and other participants. On a human level, and while not perfect, the ability to see each other gives some level of non-verbal communication. While video forces people to put on their “game faces”, some level of feedback is better than no feedback. People can see how their comments and contributions to the meeting are received and whether they need to spend more or less time on a topic.
Video calling is an aspect of web conferencing that is not a given. If you plan to use video, set that expectation beforehand. Expecting people to be able to video call without prior warning invites protest from some people. Give people the opportunity to find a quiet spot, have a decent internet connection or just even get dressed for the meeting.
It is best to have all participants use video if it is available. If some of the participants don’t use it, others may feel it isn’t a level playing field for everyone and mauy drop video from their participation during the meeting. By setting this expectation beforehand, you will have a higher degree of succes when initating a video conference call.
3. Use questions skilfully to promote conversation
Unfortunately, it is easy for participants on a conference call to ride out remote meetings without having contributed to the discussion. Participants will often put themselves on mute, and though it is a small thing, the act of unmuting hinders a lot of those people from saying anything.
Using questions to check-in frequently with the participants helps promote discussion. While it is not important for everyone to talk, make sure that you are pointing questions to the key people that need to contribute to a meeting’s outcomes.
Make sure that questions are designed to encourage participation rather than challenge or give people an easy way out from contributing. Asking “Does everyone understand the sales numbers?” is less helpful than “So, Dave, is there anything you would like to add to the sales numbers that would help the team?”. Why is the latter question better than the former? The former challenges to people’s intellect to understand the material and few people want to be seen as not understanding what is going by putting their hands up. The latter phrases the question towards the same outcome but invites contribution to the discussion as well as targeting a key person to contribute.
One last thing on questions - be sure to leave enough time for people to answer the question. Silence can be awkward at the best of times and even more so on a conference call but when you can’t see people reviewing their notes to check if they have questions, or showing you their bewildered faces in person, you have to give enough breathing space to allow people the opportunity to answer the questions you pose.
4. Build an agenda on outcomes rather than discussion points
Most successful meetings work when there is an agenda to work from but with remote meetings, it ensures that everyone is on the same page and reduces the risk for mismatched expectations. Distributing the agenda beforehand allows people to be familiar with what the meeting is designed to achieve.
Try to phrase the agenda using outcomes rather than discussion points. Discussion points promote discussion for sure but may not promote the right conversations that achieve the end goal of the meeting. By expressing outcomes, it helps participates frame their contribution towards that goal rather than talking for the sake of talking. For example, a discussion point might state the requirement to talk about “Sales Figures Q4” whereas an outcome will might be phrased differently like, “Identify implications of Sale Figures Q4 to Q1 planning”.
5. Ask people to parrot back what has been discussed
One technique that ensures people engage with the meeting and promotes shared clarity, is to have people parrot back important information or decisions. It might seem a little superfluous but it is useful to see how your material or decisions have been received by other parties, and allows you to easily spot points of confusion and misunderstanding.
For most people, this will be something novel and unfamiliar, so be careful about how to introduce this into the meeting culture. After giving information or instructions to people, I use the following sentence:
“I just want to be sure that I’ve been clear and catch anything I might not have explained correctly. Could you sum up for me your understanding of the situation?”
The wording of this helps put any misunderstandings on me as the information giver rather than challenge the intellect of the receiver. It invites them to help rather than assume they haven’t understood what you’ve been talking about with them.
Have at least two people parrot back the content, whether it is a learning point or a decision, in their own words so that any discrepencies can be picked up by all the participants.
6. Start with hello. For everyone.
Make it a point to do proper introductions before the meeting gets started. If you’re the meeting organiser, introduce yourself and the outcomes that you hope to get from the meeting. At the very least, explain who is on the call and why they are involved in the meeting. As the meeting organiser, you can do this yourself for expediency but it is far better to have the key participants do this themselves.
By having the people introduce themselves and their expectations from the meeting, it establishes their presence in the meeting and makes future participation easier. Firstly, the act of introduction gets commitment into the meeting by each of the participants. It avoids the all too easy option of simply “lurking” in the background of the meeting - people who show up for meetings and just audit the meeting.
Secondly, participation will be easier. People will be much more familiar with other participants if they can recognise their voice. It can be disruptive when half way through, people have to introduce themselves, their departments and their reasons for being there, when they want to make a point or ask a question.
If you’re a participant, it should also be good practice to say your name and your department when you speak for the first time after the introduction. In remote meetings, people have to rely on the sound of your voice to distinguish you and if you’re speaking for the first time, people might have a challenge placing you and the context of your questions. Help them out by providing that, at least for the first time you speak.
These are just some of the things we’ve learned over the years about having a web conferences and remote meetings. A lot of these ideas make sense for in-person meetings too, but they become more essential when you aren’t able to see your fellow participants face-to-face. This list isn’t exhaustive but hopefully they will help you start having better conversations during your remote meetings.