With the continued rise of technology and demanding schedules, meetings are increasingly taking place via conference calls or webcams. Our team at Communiqué PR facilitates many interviews and meetings over the phone with clients, media and journalists not only in Seattle, but also around the world. And while virtual meetings allow us to cut costs around travel, are more personal than email, and are flexible for schedule coordination, they are not without pitfalls.
Before you schedule your next meeting to take place via conference call or Skype, consider a few of these challenges and solutions:
- Remember virtual meetings are less personable than meeting face-to-face. Harvard Business Review recently published an article “How to Conduct a Virtual Meeting” by Dr. Nick Morgan, president of Public Words Inc. and author of several books on communication and speech, that addressed a few of these issues. Dr. Nick Morgan suggests two strategies for dealing with this roadblock. “Recognize that virtual meetings are suboptimal and plan accordingly.” He suggests using virtual meetings only for information-sharing and less important topics. Dr. Morgan says, “Save the emotional stuff for face-to-face meetings…So if you’re kicking off something important, or celebrating a big win, bite the meeting bullet and bring everyone together.”
- “Label your emotions and ask others to do the same.” His strategy surrounding this concept puts the responsibility in the hands of the meeting facilitators to identify their own feelings surrounding the contents of the meeting and to also create an expectation that others label their emotions and opinions as well. He also suggests that the facilitator create opportunities to identify and clarify emotions relating to specific issues covered in the virtual meeting with clear questions or guiding statements. Dr. Morgan gives an example: “Jim, I’m really surprised to hear that third quarter numbers aren’t improving. Surprised and worried, actually. How are you feeling about them?” Giving everyone a chance to explain what their thoughts are gives participants an opportunity to verbally communicate the types of cues that you miss out on by not being face-to-face to read body language.
- It is difficult to visually construe messages or ideas over the phone. Given this, it is essential that the meeting organizers plan ahead and distribute PowerPoint presentations, images and other pertinent information prior to the call. This allows participants to refer to visuals to better grasp your message.
- Sometimes time zone differences make scheduling impossible. Clearly it is critical to look for blocks of time where daytime hours overlap when proposing a virtual meeting. You want avoid one caller having to wake up at 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. as this is not a good way to have everyone mentally present. If this is unavoidable, you may want to try to meet in person or look to deliver information in writing.
- A good facilitator can make a huge difference. This person should keep everyone engaged and have questions prepared. Brainstorm ways to identify participants’ opinions and feelings on issues to make up for lack of body language cues.
As communications professionals we’re adept at ensuring key messages are conveyed in a variety of mediums, however these tips above are a good reminder of when to go virtual and how to make the most of these meetings.