Although we have a dynamic program to help people hold highly interactive, highly collaborative onLINE meetings, there are a number of things you can do to improve your onLINE meetings without taking our course. Here are the six things you can do:
1. Make sure the topics are worthwhile- You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The first step in having people take part in a meeting is to have topics that benefit or interest them. The old WIIFM rule (What's in it for me) is fully in effect in virtual meetings. If the topic is of less value to them than doing their email, people at the meeting will do their email.
2. Have the right people there. Too often in virtual meetings, the person calling the meeting will have people who don't need to be there present. It tends to be for the convenience of the leader. S/he may have 20 minutes which everyone needs to be there. But the rest of the meeting is divided up among the attendees who are interested in the topic and those that aren't. If you have a meeting like this, let the disinterested parties leave when you change topics.
3. Agree not to multitask Somewhere along the line, someone pulled the wool over our eyes and told us we can do more than one thing at a time. Not only is this not true, but in fact trying to do multiple things at the same time is self defeating, you actually lose time doing it. If you follow the first two steps above, multitasking needs to be banned.
4. Create good norms for your onLINE meetings. We need rules to have successful onLINE meetings. Do we start on time and what happens if someone is late? How do we get in if we want to talk and someone else has the floor? How long should someone continue before yielding the floor? How do we get agreement on decisions? What are our roles? These are a few of the things we should plan out in advance.
5. Have a dynamic agenda -we need to do something in our meetings! Meetings are precious. They are precious because it is the only time we can truly act as a team. Too often, meetings are used as information dumps and nothing gets done. We should seek to agree, determine, assist, understand, complete, etc. And all of this can only be done if we interact with one another. Another reason not to multitask.
6. Create an Action Item register during or at the end of the meeting. Insure that everyone knows what they are supposed to do and when they are supposed to do it. Use this at the beginning of subsequent meetings until the item is completed. Failure to do this makes the time you have spent in the meeting absolutely worthless.
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