Do your virtual team meetings need more focus? More engagement? Better results? In this “Virtual Meetings That Don’t Suck” video series, visual facilitator and engagement specialist Carolyn Ellis of BrillianceMastery.com shares her tips to help you create conversations that count

TIP #2: Virtual Meetings That Don’t Suck – Less is More

Transcript of Video

Hi, everyone, it’s Carolyn Ellis from Brilliancemastery.com. Thank you for watching this short video! The theme of this series is Virtual Meetings that Don’t Suck and I’m offering a series of tips over the next few weeks to help you do that.

In this week’s video, I want to share with you a principle that I call Less is More. When you think about taking the kinds of meetings that we used to have when we were meeting in person and making them virtual, it’s challenging. People are feeling a lot of pressure with that, there’s a lot to communicate, there’s a lot of information to share, there’s a lot of decision making that needs to happen. And, most importantly, you need to get some alignment from your team about what the heck you’re going to be doing these days, right?  Things are changing so quickly!

There’s a lot of pressure to make good use of that time. What I’ve noticed in this first stage of the pandemic is that we’ve gotten pretty good at realizing taking a one day retreat and putting it into a one day virtual format just doesn’t work. People just can’t. Their brains are mush by the time you hit the three hour mark, or even sooner! So we understand the idea that we have to make some adjustments of time, but we need to take it even further. You can’t cram a lot of content into a shorter period of time and expect to have the same quality of engagement and dialogue.

It kind of reminds me of those days, you remember, back in the old days when we used to pack a suitcase to go on a holiday. And if you’re like me, I would be like plan for all kinds of contingencies – what if it’s this kind of weather? What if it’s this kind of a formal situation? Packing a suitcase with lots of clothes and lots of shoes give me lots of options. And inevitably, I’d come back from that holiday and probably 75% of my clothes were unworn and probably still folded up. They just added a lot of weight to my baggage. We’re doing that with our meetings.

We need to do is embrace this principle of Less is More. Focus on what is really the most essential thing to happen in that time when you are gathering with your team in that virtual space. Maybe there’s some things that you can hive off and deal with through email. Perhaps some things are just old protocol leftovers where people feel they have to sort of show and tell what they’ve been doing lately to keep people up to date. But there may be more effective ways of getting that across.

Once you’ve pared it down to the essentials, take a look at what you have. And then I want you to pare it back even more, like another 20 25%. That way you leave some space for people to have a back and forth with each other. You leave some space to have people actually reflect and digest what they’re hearing and to be able to contribute. So that’s today’s principle for you – Less is More – and how to make sure that your virtual meetings don’t suck.

Thanks so much and I appreciate you watching.

Missed a tip? You can check out other “Virtual Meetings that Don’t Suck” video tips by clicking below:

Tip 1 – Start with the End in Mind
Tip 3 – Engage at the Start
Tip 4 – Wisdom is in the Room
Tip 5 – Dynamic Game Plan
Tip 6 – Watch Your Costs
Tip 7 – Digestion Time
Tip 8 – Leading Through Connecting