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Can Virtual Meetings be Productive?

Wisdom from a chronic virtual meeting leader before it was trendy

As someone who worked remotely for 2+ years at a company that used Zoom before Zoom was Zoom, I truly understand and empathize with the challenges involved in hosting virtual meetings.

Our offices were literally coast to coast with one in New York and another in Washington, and the majority of our leadership team worked remotely across the country. Most of our meetings were conference calls. This meant no videos, which in turn meant, team members were consistently not in front of their computers because they were in their cars, walking around during the call, or who knows where. Cleary impacting engagement and attention.

My role was essentially a special projects project manager for executive-level strategic projects coming from “The Top.” Though associate level at the time, I hosted and ran 10+ cross-functional meetings across the organization weekly.

At my prior company, after a meeting, project deadline, or big presentation, I could walk out of the meeting with a colleague or just as easily walk into a coworker’s office, recap how we thought it went, share ideas, and get the affirmation we all act like we don’t need, but do.

Now, I was remote — totally remote. No company office to go to. No colleagues nearby.

Now, after a meeting, you hung up the phone, and the call was over. That was it. I was alone in my home office. No recap. No discussion. No collaboration.

I would constantly ask myself questions like:

• Did we accomplish what we were supposed to? Heck, did we accomplish anything?
• Did this meeting add value?
• Did I say this part wrong?
• Did they understand what I meant?
• Does everyone know what they are supposed to do next?

To this day, I have never met most of the people I found myself talking with daily. As a result, I couldn’t read their faces (remember conference calls without video was their style), and I didn’t know their personalities and mannerisms.

Therefore, I quickly established a rhythm and routine for driving productive recurring virtual meetings.

Prep Work:

1. Send out an agenda the night before. This provides time to view it.
2. Title the agenda with the meeting name and date. This made it easy for team members to find it and refer to it. (I did not put it into calendar events for recurring meetings, I found it more easily accessible for others after the meeting to have it in a separate email).
3. In the Agenda, list names next to who is responsible. By seeing their name, team members were more likely to be ready. I often even color-coded names/departments, too.

During the Meeting:

1. Follow the agenda. It is important to not let the meeting get away from you. I always created opportunities for additional or missing items, so if I found a tangent starting, I would jump in and redirect to the discussion at hand.
2. Call on people directly, AND say their name before you ask the question. In the beginning, I found myself constantly just asking a question, thinking people would respond. When I would say a name after asking the questions, they would ask me to repeat the question. By calling on people directly before, they knew they were going to be responsible for speaking. (they were often off mute by then, too!).
3. Take notes in the agenda. By capturing what was committed or agreed, I minimized opportunities for miscommunication.

After the Meeting:

1. Send meeting notes. After each meeting, I would send notes, again, color-coded, with specific names and deadlines.
2. Pick up the phone. When I would notice that someone was disengaged, confused, or had more to say. I would take the time to reach out to them directly. I would often pick up the phone when I had a number since it generally held more value than an email. This increased participation and quality, consistently.

You may find my virtual meeting style overly structured, and just too much. I hear you. I probably would have thought the same way prior to being a remote employee.

When running meetings virtually, you have to be more organized, more concise, and more consistent. You need to eliminate opportunities for confusion and tangents, and instead use your meetings to drive inclusion and collaboration. Now, your virtual meetings can be productive and valuable.

After all, who wants any more meetings than needed these days!