The 9 Rules for Running an Effective Virtual Meeting
In the not-too-distant past, people complained they didn’t have time to do their work because they attended back-to-back meetings all day. They ran from one work meeting to the next, raced home to fetch the kids, put food on the table, and finally return to their computers to tackle the ever-growing pile of emails in their inbox.
Fortunately for us, times have changed. We are an advanced civilization of knowledge workers who evolved to a higher level of operational effectiveness. We no longer waste precious time sitting in conference rooms multitasking, going down rabbit holes, or suffering while peers go on tangents.
We, as modern professionals, are too smart to make these obvious mistakes of the past. We learned and evolved to efficiently and effectively share information and collaborate with peers. Today, we lead highly effective virtual meetings.
Wrong!
In just a few short months, we transitioned our suffering days full of painfully ineffective live meetings to days full of ineffective virtual meetings, and we brought ALL of our bad habits with us.
Virtual meetings are not live meetings
A virtual meeting is different than a live meeting for a variety of reasons. For starters, you aren’t in the same room together, so the invisible flow and combined energy of the room is all but eliminated. The pace of a virtual meeting is slow and stilted because people take turns to speak, which may be more polite but is unnatural. Participants are less tolerant of small talk and divergent conversations via screens, and engagement is all but impossible.
The first mistake most people make is hosting a virtual meeting is following the same unspoken rules of live meetings. To make your virtual meeting more effective, you need to intentionally design your meeting for the virtual experience.
All dentists do the same work regardless of the patient, but how they do it changes dramatically based on the age of the patient. A great dentist varies their approach based on if the patient is an adult or a child. The goal is the same, but the approach is different. You need to make special adjustments in your approach to lead virtual meetings effectively.
Nine rules for effective virtual meetings:
1. Fun is good; brevity is better — Lots of folks are looking for ideas on how to make their virtual meetings more engaging or fun, but this is the wrong question based on a false assumption. Let's see if I’m right: Would you rather attend a long and mildly fun virtual meeting or a short and highly focused meeting? If you’re like most people, you’re not looking to be entertained by your manager or someone else in your organization. It’s important to remember your meeting participants are juggling all kinds of other work, family, self-care, and who knows what else. Assume everyone on your virtual call is thinking –let’s do what we’re here to do and let us go back to work. Forced fun at work is awful, and it’s even worse on a video conference. Aim for brevity, and everyone wins.
2. Clarity is still king — What is the point? Ask yourself this question over and over again. If you don’t know your objective, then how on earth can your participants? You have one job as a manager or leader: to provide clarity.
Why are we here?
What do you want us to do?
Besides a clear meeting objective, you also need to articulate the desired outcomes of the meeting by stating precisely what value you and your participants will produce during this time together.
What is the work product of the meeting?
Is it a decision on a tough choice?
Is it a list of to-dos with owners?
Is it to create a bunch of possible solutions to a problem?
Is it to plan or rehearse for an upcoming customer call?
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: 80% of what makes a productive meeting happens before the meeting, and 80% of that productivity comes from a clear objective.
Most people tolerate stumbling on a meeting purpose in live meetings (you should avoid being one of those people and demand a meeting objective before agreeing to attend). In virtual meetings, you have about two minutes before participants begin texting each other offline, asking, “Why are we having this call?” If you preparing a meeting objective and desired outcomes is a daunting task, then perhaps the most productive move you can make is get more clarity yourself before scheduling the virtual meeting.
3. Designate a facilitator — It is almost impossible to effectively participate in and facilitate a meeting by yourself. Your brain is most effective when it focuses on a single task. Facilitators free up the remaining team to focus on content rather than the timing, structure, and deliverables of the meeting. I lead 50+ workshops and offsites every year, and most of the time, I can do it solo. However, for virtual calls, we found we need two facilitators, one to lead the meeting and one to manage the technology. We’re professional facilitators, and our sole responsibility is to manage the meeting and not the content, and we need two people to do it. If you’re trying to control the content, the meeting, and the technology, you are likely failing miserably and don’t know it.
4. Use the technology tools — Dozens of software applications exist to make your virtual meeting better. You might be using Zoom, but are you using the chat, polling, breakout rooms, whiteboards, and shared documents? If not, take 40 minutes and learn to use all the tools available. If you’ve attended one of my live workshops, then you know how much I love 3M post-it notes. In the virtual world, I have grown particularly fond of the Mural app for creative meetings because of its realistic post-it note functionality.
5. Think objective bound, not time-bound — Experience has taught me the same 90-minute rule applies to virtual meetings just as much as it does to live meetings. People can only work productively so long without a break and 90-minutes is a generally accepted rule to follow. We typically give 15-minute breaks in live workshops but are now giving 45 to 60-minute breaks in our virtual meetings, so people can completely recharge and attend to home and family needs. Each 90-minute sprint we run has a clear objective and desired outcomes, and when they are achieved, we end the meeting. If completing the objective will take longer than expected, we schedule time for it in the next sprint. The law of diminishing returns is even more acute in live meetings because there is a limit to how long we can stare at glowing pixels and still be productive.
6. Upgrade your connection — Regardless of when we go back to the office, virtual meetings are here to stay. Don’t allow weak WiFi connection, old routers, or low bandwidth to diminish your credibility. Nothing is worse than a bad connection interrupting your ability to lead a meeting. Get ahead of the problem and invest in your connection. It’s going to cost you some money, but it’s worth it. You wouldn’t walk around the office with a rip in your pants, would you? If not, don’t let a lousy connection hold you back. I didn’t enjoy competing for WiFi with my kids, so I spent $60 on a cable and hard-wired my computer to the internet router. It’s very 1990s, but it solved the problem.
7. Look at the camera — I can’t believe I need to say it, but the faces on the screen are not where you should be looking on a call when you are presenting or speaking. Find your camera and put a little note with “look here” next to it. You don’t want to be showcased on SNL as the person who is speaking towards their desktop screen and the camera is on their laptop, resulting in us only seeing the side of your head. The whole point of the camera is to connect with other people as best you can; showing us the side of your head is leaving value on the table.
8. Light it up — Want your voice to be heard on a call? Communication is more than words; it’s the visual presentation too. If it looks like you are in a cave when you’re on a virtual call, you have an opportunity to improve the message without any additional work. You need to ensure your work-from-home set-up includes lighting for your face. Facing a window helps, but buying a light is even better. Virtual meetings are here to stay, so you might as well look your best on camera, and flattering lighting is the fastest way to do it. I purchased two low-budget light stands from a local camera shop for $125 and use them to shine a light on me so I don’t blend into the background.
9. End ten minutes early — Please, please make this one change. Give 10 minutes back to everyone. Schedule the meeting for 60 minutes and aim to be done in 50. Trust me; there are 10 minutes of slack in your meeting. Here’s what I do: I conclude meetings at the 50-minute mark and thank the participants for attending. I then tell them they are free to go and I will stick around for 10 minutes if they have questions. Most people take the opportunity to go to the bathroom and check in with their kids; a few will stick around to ask a clarifying question. Give your participants the option to choose what’s best for them, and they will love you for it.
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Host a highly productive virtual meeting with our 9-step guide and planning template.
There are nine powerful questions that will make your next virtual meeting worth everyone’s time, grab your copy of our free meeting plan template, titled “Meeting Plan Template”. It’s full of tips to help you structure your meetings to maximize everyone’s time. Get your free copy today.
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Jeff is a partner at Bravium, and he and his team facilitate strategy and culture workshops that receive rave reviews for being human-centered, elegantly designed, and transformational. He can help you plan your next workshop or offsite experience so you can feel confident that it’s purposeful and productive.