It’s hard to be a weirdo, a maverick, or an outlier, especially in the workplace. Humans are wired in some pretty ancient ways to find safety and security in the tribe. It explains a lot of the cultural programming out there that teaches us it’s better to “fit in” or not “stand out” in the crowd. Showing up to a meeting with a blank sketch pad and a pencil case of colored markers might be considered a bit odd in a boardroom used to PowerPoint presentations, note-taking by laptop or Ipad, and mobile phones.

Leading hybrid meetings has a lot more complexity to it than you might initially think. Running effective hybrid meetings can feel confronting and even overwhelming. Unless you are well prepared, the logistics of organizing a Conversation that Counts can swamp your sense of confidence and presence. Professors Hooijberg and Watkins advise that “Effective leadership in this new hybrid world requires different skills that go beyond traditional team leadership”. Your preparation takes on a new level of urgency and importance when leading a hybrid meeting.

The learning COVID-19 has thrown at us will continue long after we find a way to prevent its spread and health risks. Before the pandemic, opportunities for employees to work remotely were more the exception than the rule. We have adapted quickly to working from home to comply with prescribed public health measures to contain the spread of the virus.
The current challenge facing busy managers is how to effectively lead hybrid meetings, conversations or gatherings where some attendees are co-located in the same physical space while others participate using conferencing technology. The pandemic has fundamentally shifted how and where we work together. SAs economies around the world begin to emerge from Covid restrictions, a survey by McKinsey suggests that 90% of organizations will adopt some combination of remote and on-site work.

We’ve all been in meetings that felt like a total waste of time. Endless, back-to-back meetings that clutter up the calendar and leave the real work to pile up.

You end the meeting more confused than when it started, frustrated that it was all talk and no action, just like so many before itWhen you’re the Conversation Leader, these kinds of problems fall on your shoulders

How do you handle things when people get unruly? Or is it you who talks endlessly, leaving no space for back-and-forth dialogue in your meeting?

Teams get out of alignment when they lack clarity about the decision they are asked to make. It’s essential to be upfront about whether their input is for information-sharing, brainstorming, or actual decision- making. Don’t confuse people’s attendance with acceptance. Silence doesn’t mean people agree with what is being discussed. When you treat group discussions about important issues as an activity to simply check the box on, you’ll run into problems in implementing and executing your objectives.