Tips for grabbing and keeping attention at virtual meetings.
During these unusual pandemic times, there’s one thing that has remained constant: meetings. Virtual meetings.
Long after we return to normal, it’s predicted that virtual meetings will continue to be a frequent mode for connecting–whether for internal meetings, external conferences, or anywhere in between. And your ability to lead effective meetings in the virtual space will be yet another boost to your leadership repertoire.
But let’s face it. Whether in person or online, facilitating intriguing and productive meetings has always been a challenge, and virtual meetings pose additional considerations in order to attain best results. As a college professor, I’ve had the “pleasure” of keeping mid-sized groups of 20 or so motivated and engaged during our online synchronous sessions. Not an easy task, but it is doable.
And here in the AEC industry, we’ve all had to figure out how to best connect and engage with our prospects, existing clients, internal colleagues, and external team partners. And whether your meeting purpose is centered around training, selling, relationship-building, project management, client progress, etc., we are all still learning the best approaches.
As a colleague recently pointed out, “When it comes to virtual meetings, good content trumps all.” No hook, method, gimmick, or ploy will successfully engage your audience if the content itself is lackluster. Assuming your content is indeed top-notch—and that you’ve prioritized weeding out any extraneous information—let’s now take a page from the higher-ed playbook for methods on engaging our participants in the professional realm.
Purpose
Regardless of purpose, these tips apply to all virtual meetings.
Build community. Breakout rooms are arguably one of the most powerful tools on virtual platforms. Using them is a perfect method for giving everyone direct contact with others. People need the opportunity to be heard. Smaller groups—even two or three people—are often ideal. Try creating a rotation where groups are reformed two or three times. During breakouts, the facilitator should move between rooms to observe and assist.
Offer freedom of choice. One powerful breakout room feature is the ability for attendees to select their own rooms. Similar to the “open space technology” method—where participants have been invited in order to focus on a specific, important task or purpose—pre-assign topics to each room and then allow freeform movement between. This is a dynamic, participant-driven way to organize your meeting.
Foster collaboration and creativity. Another invaluable tool: any platform with real-time document sharing features, such as Google Docs (Slides/Sheets) or Office 365. What makes this fun is that breakout groups can focus on specific aspects of a preexisting document shell. Everyone can watch as the document morphs into something co-prepared by all the groups. To solidify the effort, bring everyone back into a main room to present findings and outcomes.
Emulate the in-person experience. While facilitating virtual discussion is challenging, it’s not impossible. With under 15 participants, you can try unmuting everyone. Even so, most platforms allow only one speaker at a time, so using the old-fashioned hand-raise cue can still be helpful. Scribing on a virtual whiteboard helps to capture the comments for all to see.
Setup
Preparation is as important as purpose. Consider the following.
Prepare attendees in advance. Manage expectations by sharing a results-oriented agenda in advance of the meeting. Preparation will demonstrate your respect for their time. To boost their overall contributions, arm participants with any materials to review in advance. Finally, ask for comments on the agenda in advance of the meeting, and then reference those comments (along with the person’s name) during the meeting. Above all, you’re aiming to send the message of “Please engage—don’t hide—during our meeting.”
Master the technology. When all of us were suddenly thrown into working from home in March 2020, participants were patient with one another. We expected technical glitches. A year later, we should be able to reduce or eliminate time-wasting glitches. It’s worth it to become familiar with—and push the boundaries of—your software of choice. (At this point, I’m on a first-name basis with Pierre from Zoom tech support!) If stakes are high, consider conducting a practice run of your meeting, even recruiting faux participants. Explore using dual screens. And finally, sign into your meeting with a different device. The latter is very helpful so that you can see what the audience sees at all times.
Co-opt “helpers” by delegating roles. Depending upon the type of meeting, many people enjoy having a pre-assigned responsibility. They can monitor the chat box for questions and comments, serve as a time-keeper, etc. Even better, you can assign agenda topics for others to lead. This encourages accountability and involvement. To ensure that they are truly prepared and not scrambling at the last minute, ask them to submit their piece prior to the session for you to assemble.
Establish the mood with a splash page. When participants enter your meeting, they should see a visual slide that includes information about the meeting, to-do items to get settled, and/or something fun for a shared laugh (memes are crowd-pleasers). To add flair, playing music in advance of the meeting is another way to create a mood—ambitious, energetic, relaxing, etc. If possible, ask attendees for requests or playlists in advance, to create subtle involvement.
Keep them on their Toes
Holding attendees’ attention during the meeting takes more than great preparation. The effort to keep the group engaged is an ongoing task.
Create the unexpected with real stuff. Providing something tangible is a fun way to shake things up. For example, all professors in my department received packages in the mail, noted with “Bring this to our next faculty meeting, unopened!” Together, we unwrapped new gadgets: multiport USB adapters. Handy! An acquaintance from the tech giant Salesforce shared that all participants received hoodies to wear during their all-office virtual conference. A friend in business consulting mentioned receiving a care package of goodies in advance of the virtual holiday party. A principal researcher shipped a regional bottle of wine to his entire international team, to enjoy simultaneously during a virtual celebration. These small gestures lighten up the mood and foster a sense of comradery.
Foster the human-to-human connection. Add quickie icebreakers, such as collecting rapid-fire responses by voice, chat box, or shared whiteboard. Prompts could include “this or that” choices or sharing quick personal specifics such as go-to place for thinking, the book you currently have on your nightstand, your “happy place”, your favorite ice cream flavor, your favorite travel destination so far or your next planned trip—the list goes on. At the end of the session, invite people to stay after for casual conversations, just like what you’d do after an in-person meeting.
Present with charisma. Here is another area where practicing will serve you well. By recording a meeting rehearsal, you’ll be able to adjust your body and paralanguage to be engaging, yet not overwhelming. One example: In virtual meetings, gestures need to be slower and used in moderation. Additionally, facial expressions carry more weight on video. Are you satisfied with your expressions? Do they match your message and intent? If you are seated and/or reading from notes during a virtual meeting, then your paralanguage (vocal variety) may suddenly exude a lower energy than you intend. Maybe you will identify useless movements. As an example, through my own recordings, I quickly discovered that I move my head in a distracting manner on video calls. All it took was a simple reminder note and some practice. Voila! The strange head movement disappeared! (For additional video best practices, see my May 2020 Business Issues article “Smile! You’re on Camera” in the Archives section at www.modernsteel.com.)
Show your face! If you are on Zoom, you now have the option of using a PowerPoint slide deck as background. A small picture of your face appears in front of the slide deck, and you can resize and relocate as needed. This keeps participants more connected to you rather than switching their attention back and forth between your video and your content. Alternatively, if you are screen sharing in the traditional manner, make sure that you periodically stop sharing your screen so that your face returns to full screen mode.
Mention participants by name throughout. Maybe you’re calling on them directly for input or to share (“Andres resolved a sticky situation with our client last week. Andres, can you summarize the context and outcome?”) Or, perhaps you’re illustrating a point by using their name (“As an example, James could complete his part before handing it over to Misha’s team. Eliot would review before submitting to the client.”) Using names encourages undivided attention.
Chunk content. Anything that provides a “shift” will help maintain attention. This can be a shift in speaker or activity or topic. In academia, my own rule of thumb is 15 minutes maximum before shifting in some manner. However, most would advise to halve that to seven minutes. Whatever you do, make sure to reduce the actual amount of overall content by transferring some of it to offline (asynchronous) consumption.
Promote equity among contributors. In face-to-face meetings, sometimes the loudest person dominates the room. No more. One of the happy accidents of virtual meetings: They’ve “flattened” the organization, enabling easier access from the ranks to the senior leadership. People feel increased permission to express. For example, a large, multi-office architectural engineering firm can encourage participants to have ongoing conversations in the chat, or use software such as Miro or WebEx to visually build upon—or react to—the content that is presented in the meeting. These things can be monitored and summarized so that the senior leadership can directly respond in real-time. So rather than simply broadcasting top-down information, the meeting becomes a true exchange, and adds value to the overall experience.
To create equity in smaller meetings, the host can go low-tech. For example, as a host, you can have a hardcopy list of attendees, and mark a dot next to each person whenever they contribute. With a quick glance, you can make sure to loop quiet participants into the mix.
Squelch multi-tasking. As mentioned, if your content is compelling, you’re more likely to keep their attention. Even so, I can personally admit that I’ve still multi-tasked with the camera off during high-quality learning sessions simply because I could. If I had been called upon to actively engage, you better believe I would have been more attentive. Just like in face-to-face meetings, setting some housekeeping parameters is perfectly reasonable. This includes requesting cameras on and other devices off.
Include polls (provided they would not be viewed as “gimmicks”). Intermittent polls are not just used for engaging participants. They also capture valuable information collected in a post-session report. Design your polls to include the option of expanding upon responses within the chat box. Just like in webinar design, a reasonable rule of thumb is launching a solid poll every 30 to 90 minutes. As an additional method for involvement, you could invite participants to prepare a poll question in advance.
Adjust the ”parking lot” method. Just like in face-to-face meetings, a parking lot (collecting off-course topics on a flip chart for future attention) remains useful in virtual meetings. Let participants know ahead of time about the feature and simply create the parking lot within the chat or whiteboard.
Reenergize. Try to end your meeting ten minutes before the hour so that attendees have a break if they have to run to another meeting. Consider creating meeting-free timeframes within your organization, where you respect the blackout periods. Encourage participants with special talents (acting/theater/meditation/etc.) to prepare optional two- to three-minute experiences to serve as a reenergizing break.
Zoom fatigue is real. Our mental health is at stake here. Make your meetings something to anticipate and engage with enthusiasm and not just another time suck in front of a screen. And please share your own tips and lessons learned with me, as we all remain students in this new-ish virtual world.