Putting Our Heads Together - Tips for Virtual Meetings

All your meetings are now virtual, and you or someone on your team is asking: "With everybody working from home, who knows for how long, how can we communicate more effectively as a team?"

I spoke with managers working at top tech companies in the Bay Area. Here are four tips they've learned after running countless virtual meetings through WebX, Zoom, Skype, BlueJeans, and Google Meet.

1. Test Your Audio, Test your Credibility

Research shows that audio quality can hurt a speaker's credibility. Norbert Schwarz, the social and cognitive scientist at the University of Southern California who conducted this research said, "We find, over and over again, that the easier something is to process, the more likely you are to assume that it's true. And the more compelling you find it."

Maybe one person on your team has a tinny, compressed voice through video conference. Do they know this? Maybe that person is you? Don't assume your audio quality is good. Test it out, so you know.

Take five minutes to record yourself talking using Photo Booth on Mac or Windows Camera on PCs. Toggle between the audio input options: your wireless headphones, your plug-in headphones, your in-computer microphone. Then, replay the audio. Listen for the voice that sounds the clearest and the warmest. Better yet, since most people don't like listening to the sound of their own voice, ask a family member or roommate to listen. Let them tell you which one sounds best.

The more your voice sound like you are chatting at the same table, the more connection they will have with you. And, as the research suggests, the more credible you will sound, too.

Side note: Because everybody’s set up is going to be different, there is no hard and fast rule for which option is the best. For my home office, I found the best sound quality for my voice was the computer's built-in microphone. For your space, you might find that headphones work best. You won't know until you experiment.

2. State Expectations for Everybody to Mute/Unmute Themselves

When hosting team meetings, don't automatically mute everybody. If you do, you're implying that you will also unmute everybody when asking for their input. Unmuting colleagues is easy to forget when you’re focusing on your content and delivery.

Ask colleagues to keep their fingers hovering over the spacebar or mouse, so they can unmute themselves easily to contribute to the meeting. To get everybody into this habit, play a game at the beginning of your next meeting: call each team member by name, each person unmutes, says hello, and then re-mutes.

One company leader I spoke to said she frequently sees new managers mute everybody at the beginning of meetings, talk for 10 minutes, and then asks a question. Somebody speaks up first. But there is no sound. Everybody waves their hands. Someone shouts, "Unmute your mic!” A few roll their eyes. The manager is flustered, the team is exasperated, and the morale drops.

In contrast, the company leader told me that her top teams do well remembering mute and unmute, and when someone forgets, they kindly reminding each other, like reminding a friend to tie their shoelaces.

3. Use Live Documents

Paying attention to colleagues, whether they are sitting across from you or on the monitor in front of you, takes concerted effort. To keep everyone engaged and listening, be clear about what you’re covering and how everyone can contribute.

To do this, use a live document -- like a gdoc on Google Drive, a Quip, or on Microsoft’s OneDrive. A live document is online and colleagues can synchronistically collaborate on it. It's like a whiteboard in your team meeting room. 

Before the meeting,

• share this living document with the agenda in it so everyone can see the talking points beforehand

During the meeting,

• ask everyone to keep the doc visible and to review it while the meeting is in progress

• take notes within the doc, so everybody can keep track and confirm announcements/takeaways from each discussion point

At the end of the meeting or at each decision point, 

• poll or round robin to pull everyone on the team back into the conversation. Be inclusive. (If you do this frequently, people will come to expect it and become more engaged throughout the meeting; they know they will be asked for their input).

After the meeting and following meetings,

• Teams can add comments on the live document, making it more rich

• For the next meeting, start at the top of the shared document, adding the date and the new agenda

4. Influence Your Team Norms & Habits

Maybe one member of your team turns on and off the camera every 5 minutes. Maybe one team member has the audio on, actively listening, but you see them make themselves a sandwich. Is it okay to play fetch with your dog during virtual meetings?

According to Google’s Project Aristotle, successful teams can look, feel, and behave differently. Once again, there is no hard and fast rule to running impactful virtual meetings. The one commonality researchers found is that each member of a high performing team understands and can influence their team norms and habits. You and your team need to talk about what is and what is not working.

Below are some suggestions to bring up in your next team meeting:

• "How about we test out best ways to queue up questions? For groups large than five or if there is lag, I suggest raising our hands so we don't unintentionally speak over each other. "

• "Can we explore Zoom’s Breakout Rooms? I heard it's great for brainstorming. Afterwards, we can discuss as a group.

• "Even though the host most likely needs 5 minutes to set up the virtual meeting, let's join on time. This gives the team time to reconnect and engage is small talk. How does that sound?"

What tips have you found to be helpful to provide team members as you learn more and more about virtual meetings? Comment below, and then share with them this article to get the discussion started.