CHAPTER 23
What Everyone Should Know About Running Virtual Meetings
by Paul Axtell
To make sure that your virtual meetings are adding value and velocity to your projects, do three things:
Focus on relationships.
The quality of people’s relationships in a meeting determines the quality of the conversations that will occur during the meeting. That’s why it’s important to set aside time to build relationships among team members.
Start with casual conversation.
Make it a practice for the conference lines to be open 10 minutes early, and designate that time for catching up. Ask someone to be there to greet and talk with people once the lines are open. If you’re leading the meeting, prepare ahead of time so that you can spend time chatting rather than answering e-mails or reviewing your notes. Encourage others to make it a practice to show up early to converse.
Then, at the start of each meeting, ask three people to take a couple of minutes to share what’s happening with them. Here are my favorite ways to start this brief conversation:
- Please catch us up on one of your other projects.
- What’s happening in your country?
- How’s your family?
Use people’s names.
During the meeting, credit people when you refer to their earlier comments. Keep a chart next to you to help remember who’s out there. People love to be recognized, and in virtual meetings, it builds a sense of community that can otherwise be diminished by not being in the same space. It also pulls meeting participants into a zone of being more attentive and thoughtful.
Meet face-to-face.
When team members visit from out of town or from another country, find time to see them. Schedule a working dinner. Invite them to coffee. If there’s driving involved, ride together. Pick them up at the airport. This lays the foundation for authentic conversation—so you’ll feel less distant on your next virtual encounter.
Prepare, so you can be present and productive.
Publish an agenda.
A clear agenda helps your participants understand how you’ll conduct the virtual meeting and allows them to think about and prepare for each topic in advance. This is particularly important for those who speak English as a second language. When people have time to prepare, they can participate more fully and powerfully. Expecting people to develop their thinking and then express it clearly in the moment during a meeting is asking too much.
The agenda doesn’t need to be elaborate. For each topic, answer these questions:
- Why is this topic on our agenda?
- How much time is allocated for this topic?
- Where do we want to be at the end of our discussion?
- What do we need from participants?
Give yourself more time.
Plan on 20% more time than you think you’ll need for each topic. The process of getting broad participation and checking to see if everyone has had a chance to express their views and ask their questions takes time— lots of time. You don’t want to feel any pressure to get through an agenda. You’ll sacrifice clarity and alignment if you or your team members feel rushed. You can always end early if the extra time you’ve built in isn’t needed.
Identify who you want to hear from.
Before the meeting, consider:
- Who would get the conversation off to a great start?
- Who will be most affected by the topic?
- Who is likely to have different views and ideas?
- Whose experience needs to be brought into the conversation?
Part of feeling included and adding value in a group is having the opportunity to share what you’re thinking about the topic. This can be difficult when you’re in the same room and even harder virtually. Once you’ve thought about who you want to hear from, tell people which topics you’d like their input on. Letting people know that you want broad participation is the first step; calling on people strategically and gently is the second step. Knowing ahead of time who you want to get into the conversation for each topic will make this easy.
Lead to accomplish the agenda and to get broad participation.
Review how you’ll manage the conversation.
Virtual meetings require a stronger leadership approach because you don’t have access to the nonverbal cues about whether people have questions or would like to get into the conversation. These meetings also require more empathy and thoughtfulness on your part because people have this sense of being less connected than when they’re in the same room.
Ask for the permission you need to be able to relax and enjoy leading the meeting. This is what I usually request:
- Permission to be firm about keeping the conversation on track
- Freedom to call on different people when it seems appropriate
- Agreement from everyone about setting aside their technology, unless they have a good reason for keeping it available
I also let people know that while I have a plan for the meeting, I’m open to their coaching and ideas on making the meeting work for everyone.
Asking for what you want gives you the opportunity to guide the group without making anyone wrong. It also gives people in the group permission to step outside of their normal ways of interacting and participate authentically. It’s easy to be ourselves in small groups of four or five people over coffee. In larger groups and virtual groups, the conversation needs to be set up to be safe and effective.
Consider covering these points in your opening:
- “With your permission, I’d like to manage our conversation today in a deliberate fashion so that we all stay on track and to make sure that everyone gets heard. This doesn’t mean that I intend to be heavy-handed; I’d just like more freedom to keep the conversation focused and permission to call on people to ensure we have everyone’s questions and views expressed before we end a topic.”
- “For each item, I’d like to ask certain people to start the topic off. I’ve made notes on who I think might be affected and will check with each of you. Of course, if I haven’t called on you and you want to add something, please do so. You always have permission to get into any conversation if your ideas, questions, and views have not yet been expressed.”
Then, manage the conversation thoughtfully.
Go slowly. Without being able to see people as they speak, it’s not only harder to hear, it’s more difficult to process what’s being said. Speaking succinctly will help, and a calmer pace will provide openings for people to ask their questions. Refer to your chart of who’s in the meeting to keep track of who’s already spoken and to remind you to invite others to add to the conversation.
Consider adding a process step to check for clarity on each topic. Without visual clues, you can’t always tell when people aren’t understanding or are disagreeing. If you have people with different language or cultural backgrounds, getting to clarity and alignment may require more time going back and forth.
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Paul Axtell provides consulting and personal effectiveness training to a wide variety of clients, from Fortune 500 companies to universities. His latest book, Meetings Matter: 8 Powerful Strategies for Remarkable Conversations (Jackson Creek, 2015), received awards from the Nonfiction Book Awards and the Benjamin Franklin Book Awards, a Silver award in the Nautilus Book Awards, and was first runner-up for the Eric Hoffer Prize.
Adapted from content posted on hbr.org on April 14, 2016.