How many online meetings have you attended recently?

How many were engaging, satisfying, and effectively facilitated?

As I write this in mid-March 2020, we are just beginning to feel the impacts of the coronavirus across North America. As you gather less often with colleagues, more of your work life is probably moving online.

Given the growing popularity of working-from-home virtual meetings – plus other online activities, such as remote workshops and webinars – this is a great moment to improve your virtual facilitation skills. Here’s how.

The upside of virtual meetings

First, let’s acknowledge that virtual engagement comes with a variety of challenges. These include obsessive multi-tasking – it’s WAY too easy to check emails, etc. – and the deep difficulty of “reading the room.” With a dispersed group, there isn’t really a room to read.

Reliable internet and cell service aren’t available to everyone – says this rural Vermont resident – which is both a logistical and equity issue.

However, online meetings carry several advantages:

Efficiency. No travel time required! Also, virtual meetings include fewer random conversations, assuming you are blessed with an effective, strong-handed facilitator.

Accessibility. Those who are unable to travel – or have health challenges preventing them from hanging out with other people – can participate. This was true before COVID-19, and will still be true after this threat diminishes.

Equity. In my experience, the big talkers and dominant personalities tend to dominate a little less during virtual meetings. If you’re the facilitator, it’s easier to level the playing field among participants and hear everyone’s voice.

Eight facilitation tips for online meetings and conference calls

Here are several nuts-and-bolts suggestions to improve your online meetings and increase your confidence as a virtual facilitator.

1. Share the agenda in advance. This allows people collect their thoughts and arrive better able to participate.

2. Prepare well. Design the meeting – this is deeper work than simply assembling an agenda. How will you connect people? What tools will you use at each stage in the meeting?

3. Engage your team early. Introduce an icebreaker, ask a question, give them something to do. If you’re using a platform like Zoom, you can break one large group into small groups for more intimate conversations.

4. Focus on relationships. You might feel the need to prioritize meeting outcomes, which is appropriate. At the same time, do your best to make sure that everyone feels heard and respected.

5. Facilitate forcefully! This might be the most important tip. Drive the agenda, call on people, ask those who haven’t spoken yet to add their thoughts while encouraging those who over-participate to listen and share the microphone.

6. Leadership = strong agenda + broad participation. For me, this equation is about balancing the need to lead assertively while creating space for everyone. It’s a learnable skill set, and it’s also an art.

7. In mixed meetings (some people in the room together, some remote), designate a “bridge” to ensure that remote colleagues can participate effectively. Someone – other than you – needs to prioritize their needs and their voices.

8. Close well; define clear next steps. Because that’s the end of a satisfying meeting!

Looking good online 

With kudos to public speaking coach Gigi Rosenberg (see below), here are several tips to help you look your professional best during virtual meetings, webinars, and other online events.

• Set your computer camera at eye level – it’s a more flattering angle. Look into the camera while speaking. (Notice how I’m using boxes to elevate my laptop.)

• Light your face well. If you’re too dark or lit from behind, it looks like a hostage video.

• Choose a non-distracting background. When I’m facilitating a webinar or working with a new client, I move to a neutral background or hang a photographer’s cloth behind me – as in this photo. Otherwise, you’d be staring into our kitchen.

• Relax your face – and also be energetic. It’s a conundrum, right? Be energetically relaxed!

Want more? Wisdom from the source 

Here are three recent blog posts that informed this one. These authors approach this topic from very different perspectives, which is really helpful.

• Gigi Rosenberg, 7 Presentation Tips for Speaking Online in a Virtual World
• Andrea Kihlstedt, 5 Tips for Making Virtual Meeting Work for Your Capital Campaign
• Beth Kanter, How to Facilitate Effective Virtual Meetings

Many thanks to them all for sharing their expertise.