Online meetings are a lot easier to get right than many people realise. But they require a different approach to what typically happens in them currently.People tended to use virtual meetings for their convenience, but saw them as inferior and generally preferred to meet in person. Of course the Pandemic has massively upset this balance, but the response from most people to conducting all their meetings virtually has been to simply ‘put the off-line, on-line’.
However, this fails to realise the full potential of the online medium to make online meetings actually better, more effective, than physical meetings … the realisation that the new medium benefits from taking a different approach.
The potential of the new medium
The internet not only provides the means to collaborate across timezones and locations. It also provides limitless opportunities for different types of collaboration. And we need to start embracing these opportunities to better achieve our meeting objectives.
We need to stop seeing online meetings as a pale reflection of the real thing. And we need to start seeing their potential to rectify what has become a source of inefficiency and frustration in many organisations.
But not everything has to change at once. There are many good practices we can take from physical meetings to ensure we get the best out of online meetings. For example, adopting some of the practices below will help you to improve immediately. They will also set you on a path to creating meetings which fully reflect your leadership.
Attributes of an effective meeting
Here are six key attributes to making your virtual meetings more effective. Click on them to understand how they can be better applied in a virtual meeting, and to access the free resources that will help you to make it happen:
Assembly: Having the right people, in the right place, at the right time, ready
Alignment: Agreeing on a clear purpose and the practical steps to get there
Activity: Using the potential of the internet to fully engage participants
Attention: – Facilitating practices which help listening and understanding
Action: Building ownership of outcomes and actions to ensure progress
Assessment: Learning from experience and observation to improve further
Meeting ToolChest provides a range of guidance on how to get the best from each of these areas. To use it, simply click on a box above for access. Or you can click next (below right) to work through them in order.
In a hurry? Need something quick for your meeting? Try our free Instant Templates! Ten seconds from click to engagement. No sign-up required.