DILBERT © Scott Adams. Used By permission of ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION. All rights reserved.
US-based Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella recently discussed with the Australian Financial Review1 his “visit” to Australia for meetings in every state with team members, customers, media and business partners. Nadella completed “the trip” in just seven hours –without leaving home. That’s not the multi-day haul of the pre COVID-19 era.
While his “virtual” trip was successful thanks to technology, it led the Microsoft boss to reflect on this omnipresent online meetings medium. As with other leaders, Nadella questions the wisdom of the “work-from-home-forever” movement because of its total reliance on electronically connected humans.
For those of us who cut our teeth in the pre-virtual meetings era, the thought of sessions full of internet lags, and people saying “Wait, what was that?”, “Sorry, you go ahead”, and “Hang on, you just froze”, is horrifying. The implications for team and communication effectiveness are alarming.
Less than 12 months before COVID-19 struck, management expert Professor Steven Rogelberg writing in the Harvard Business Review2 cited research noting:
executives spend 23 hours in meetings each week, on average, eight are unproductive = two months per year wasted
90% of participants daydream in meetings
73% use meeting time to do other work.
Anecdotally from our clients, these results hold true. One said recently: “I get anxious when trying to listen at the same time as looking for body language messages. And I feel stressed staring at the camera and not knowing what people are doing when their cameras are turned off.”
Online meeting effectiveness was challenged in a paper to the global Project Management Institute3 world congress. “(Virtual) communication is tough compared to an effective face-to-face team, who can catch up with one another by walking over to each other's desks. Too often, feedback from colleagues is slow and communication is difficult. Without the instant feedback of body language, people are more likely to misinterpret information, which can lead to misunderstandings in a virtual environment.”
Time for action
Our April 2020 blog 6 tips to improve virtual team meetings shares ways and means of keeping online interactions sharp and value-adding. We also champion the value of other communication channels such as the phone. Here’s our checklist.
Decide if the meeting is essential
Circulate an agenda with specific outcomes
Double check the technology
Keep it short, keep it moving
Deliver all of you, not just the words
Follow up to maximise follow-through
Effective meetings skills are rarely taught. Professor Rogelberg notes 75% of survey respondents received no formal training in how to conduct or participate in them.
Meetings are high stakes. They influence innovation, collaboration, decision-making and productivity. Meetings skills may be labelled soft skills, but they deliver hard results.
1. https://www.afr.com/technology/microsoft-boss-undecided-on-the-post-pandemic-future-of-work-20200927-p55zrg
2. https://hbr.org/2019/01/why-your-meetings-stink-and-what-to-do-about-it#:~:text=Harvard%20Business%20Review.,Steven%20G.,Oxford%20University%20Press%2C%202019
3. Pullan, P. & Prokopi, E. (2016). Leading virtual project teams: dos and don'ts. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2016—EMEA, Barcelona, Spain. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.