It is hard to get people to pay attention to any meeting, but when people aren't in the same room it can be especially difficult. It is particularly irritating when after a detailed discussion you pause and get a response "I am not sure I understood, could you please repeat it" which means that he was busy elsewhere and was not paying attention.
Most of the meetings are monologues as there is no accountability for engagement. When we are in the same room, we can get the attention of the audience with eye contact. While the participants may be busy with their phones, they may pretend to show some interest. When you cannot see the audience than to keep their attention you have to engage them i.e, you have to create opportunities for the participants to engage fully.
We hold meetings to make decisions, to solve a problem, to get status of the decisions taken, to influence and to strengthen relations. The passive audience can rarely do quality work. For meetings to be effective you need to voluntarily engage the participants to make the meeting worthwhile.
Sixty-second rule
Let us discuss a few rules to make the meetings more engaging second rule
Never engage a group in solving a problem until they have felt the problem. Do something in the first sixty seconds to make them experience it. You might share some shocking or provocative statistics or share an anecdote. The goal is to make sure the group emphatically understands the problem before trying to solve it.
Responsibility rule
When people enter any social setting, they tacitly work to determine their role. Eg: when you enter a theatre to watch a movie, you unconsciously define your role as an observer to be entertained. The biggest threat to any meeting, more so virtual meeting, is allowing the team member to become observers. To counteract this implicit decision, the presenter has to create an experience of shared responsibility early in the presentation. Create an opportunity for them to take meaningful responsibility.
Nowhere to hide rule
In a railway station, a person appearing to have a heart attack is less likely to get help the more people there are in the station. This is called diffusion of responsibility. If everyone feels responsible then no one is responsible. Avoid this by giving people activities they can actively engage in so there is nowhere to hide. In virtual meetings, wherever possible, give people a problem that must be solved quickly. make groups of 3-4 persons, create breakout rooms where they can discuss and give limited-time 5 minutes average. Ask everyone to share their answers on the chatbox and call one or two to share examples over the phone.
MVP Rule
Presenting slides after slides disengage the audience especially assaulting everyone with slides and slides of data and bulleted points. Determine Minimum Viable Powerpoint(MVP) Select the least amount of data to engage the audience. Do not add a single more. It forces you to engage the audience. If you have too many slides, it forces you to go through all of them. for eg, a 15 minutes presentation should not have more than 3 slides. You should finish in 1 slide and keep the remaining 2 slides to engage the audience.
Five-minute role
Never go beyond 5 minutes before allowing the group to participate - a problem to solve, polling, express opinion on the chatbox, etc., the participants are scattered all over the place with too many distractions. If we do not sustain a continual expectation of meaningful engagement they will retreat into the role of the observer and it will be very difficult to bring them back.
These tips should become second nature, no matter what kind of meeting you are leading. The stakes are higher today with the participants engaging virtually thereby losing the visual contact and they are free to wander and get diverted very easily.
Following the above tips will dramatically improve engagement and productivity in any meeting.
How to Get People to actually Participate in Virtual Meetings
by Justin Hale and Joseph Grenny HBR March 09, 2020
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