How to have online meetings
A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about how to have online meetings. It was a joke. My top tip was "check that you own a computer". But, weirdly, in turned out to be mostly good advice. It led to a whole series of seminars for a big, German insurance company about how they should run online meetings with their clients. Here's what I learned about how to operate in the horrific world of Zoom, Webex, and Teams.
First things first, why do online meetings feel so bad? In large part, it's the failure of non-verbal communication. The Germans and I identified three consequences of this failure: turn-taking trouble, talking too much, and not tuning the content.
Turn-taking trouble
Face-to-face, we have an efficient system for working out who's going to speak next. With a flurry of non-verbals - eye contact, raised eyebrows, a tilt of the head - we communicate messages like "you speak next" or "I want to speak next" or "I'm going to keep speaking even though you want me to stop speaking". All this makes conversations flow naturally.
In an online meeting, however, it breaks down. Eye contact is technically impossible. You can stare into your webcam, which is a simulation of eye contact applied equally to all participants, or you can look at my face, but then no one knows that that's what you're doing. So our unspoken who-goes-next system fails.
The result: you get awkward silences. People are less certain - more hesitant - about speaking. They’re also more likely to start speaking at the same time - at the precise moment the silence becomes uncomfortably long. The whole conversation starts to feel glitchy and uncomfortable.
Talking too much
If you're explaining something complex face-to-face, you can see the moment when we get it. A signal - a click, a snap - passes over our faces. We nod knowingly. And that indicates to you that you can either shut up or repeat the point for emphasis.
Online, it's harder to see your idea land. Instead of the reassuring click, you just get silence and a set of sullen faces.
The lack of feedback makes you do something a bit stupid - you just keep talking. You want to fill the silence; you're subconsciously searching for the reassuring click. You over-explain. You repeat the message several times in several ways. And then you give some more context. And then a bit more. You start to ramble. The point is laboured. People get bored and stop listening.
And something similar happens when you ask a question. Because people are more hesitant about speaking, and because of the latency of online communication, the silence after your question is much longer than you expect it to be. And you want to fill this silence too. So you ask a slightly different question. And then another. And then another. You make a little pile of questions all asking slightly different things.
Not tuning the content
Face-to-face non-verbals can also indicate the kind of thing we want you to say. I can show you, with my face, that I want you to expand on your current point, or to clarify it, or to defend it. Or that all this is a big joke now. Mid-flow, I can switch my expression to indicate that the last thing you said wasn't clear. And you can make a real-time clarification. I can show that it landed and that I agree, or that it landed and I don't agree. And that steers you towards either moving on or dealing with my disagreement.
This kind of non-verbal guidance to the speaker is much less forthcoming online. Isolated at the end of an internet connection, people are less inclined to steer you - to help you tune your content. So your content might suck.
So what do we do?
Most of my clients - including the big, German insurance company - want to solve the problem with technology. They fantasise about a VR paradise which replicates and improves the face-to-face experience. They'll spend a whole day on some virtual beach with their clients, shooting the breeze, sipping e-margaritas, and reading the hidden messages in every wrinkle of the client's brow.
It'll happen - maybe - but not any time soon. For now, we're stuck with Webex and the other hellholes.
So how do we solve the problem we have right now? How do we make online meetings slightly less awful?
Much of the awfulness of online meetings results from the assumption that they should work like face-to-face meetings. It's a weird thing to point out, but you know exactly how to behave in a face-to-face meeting. You've internalised a set of operating procedures that dictate obvious things - like when you should say hello, how you should handle coffee distribution - but also less obvious things - like how to show someone you’re interested and want to hear more without actually saying "I'm interested and I want to hear more". These operating procedures are disastrously ineffective when you apply them online.
So we need to stop applying the face-to-face operating procedures. We need to develop new ones. Ones which actually work over videoconference. And we need to recognise that applying them will feel weird initially. Because internalising the operating procedures of a novel social context always feels weird.
So here are some suggestions. The standard operating procedures which I helped the big, German insurance company put together.
Have a tyrannical moderator
Hundreds of implicit, non-verbal cues keep a meeting running smoothly face-to-face. Online, they don't work. So everything that's non-verbal and implicit needs to become verbal and explicit. This means doing things that would be seen as aggressive face-to-face. Things like instructing people when to speak and - critically - not to speak. If your team can't overcome the weirdness of this bare-knuckle style of communication, then it's useful to have someone do it for them. Create a tyrannical moderator - a dictatorial persona who only exists online. This tyrant has the power to ask people to start and stop speaking, to police the use of mute and webcam, and should also be very, very hands-on about keeping discussions on time and on topic.
Hyper-structured is quicker
Unstructured meetings are fine and they have their own merits. But they also take significantly longer. Our tolerance for longer meetings is lower online, so it makes sense to err on the side of more structure. Invest, particularly, in refining the objective. "Start discussions on the new product portfolio" is probably not enough; "debate and decide on whether we're including products x, y, and z in the product portfolio" is probably better. And, if you want there to be a bit of unstructured chat at some point, schedule it in.
The fewer people, the better
From a communication perspective, the optimal number of participants for an online meeting is two. Every participant you add above that number will make the interaction harder. Lurkers - people who join the meeting on mute with no video - create a weird social pressure; it's as if I walked into your meeting room and stood silently facing the wall for the duration of the discussion. So your aim is to strip the number of participants down to the bare minimum. If you invite someone to a meeting, tell them precisely what it is that you want them to add or extract from the discussion. Then they'll come ready. If you're not sure about inviting someone, don't - for the love of God - ask them if they want to attend - they'll just feel pressurised and become another lurker. Try asking them if they need to come to either add some information or extract some information.
Embrace the silence
There will be more of it than you expect. If you're making a complex point and you're not sure if people get it, don't just keep talking into the void - ask them if they understand. Remember that the pause after your question will be longer than you expect it to be. Don't fill it with ten alternative questions - wait for an answer. And, more generally, don't panic just because the meeting doesn't have the rhythm and flow of a face-to-face conversation. Just deal with the silence. Let it be.
Address questions and comments to specific people
Face-to-face, you use your gaze to indicate which individual or individuals you're talking to. Online, you need to name them. "That's a question for everyone" might sound moronic if you said it in person, but, in a virtual meeting, it's actually really useful.
Tell people what you want them to say
As I said, non-verbals don't just indicate turn-taking, they also tell you what kind of response people want from you. "Oh really?", depending on the non-verbals, could mean "tell me more" or "defend your idea". Online, it might be useful to specify exactly what you want - expansion, defence, or something else.
Exaggerate your non-verbals (big groups) or make your non-verbals verbal (small groups)
When you’re listening, you can be helpful to the speaker by clearly displaying your reaction. In a small group, that might mean saying things you’d normally just show – “that’s really interesting”. In a large group, where it’d be disruptive to contribute verbally, you can exaggerate your non-verbals – big nods, thumbs up, beaming smiles.
Be ready to say weird things
More generally, an environment which is devoid of non-verbal communication necessitates the saying of weird things. Given that you probably can't see what your client's reaction to your suggestion is, you might have to ask something strange - something like "what's your reaction to that suggestion, Jamie?". This is, obviously, a bizarre conversational turn. It feels uncomfortable. But that, I'm afraid, is how lots of things are going to feel until the world gets used to its new online operating procedures. In the meantime, embrace the weirdness.