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Handling Hybrid Meetings, Part 2
Excerpt from Lead Conversations that Count: How Busy Managers Run Great Meetings
(Rowntree Press, 2021)
Leading hybrid meetings has a lot more complexity to it than you might initially think. In Handling Hybrid Meetings, Part 1, I shared some examples of hybrid meetings gone wrong.
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.
Here are a few tips to help you handle those hybrid meetings in your future with greater confidence and clarity!
Decide the Best Way to Meet
Just because you can have a hybrid meeting doesn’t mean that you should. With the complexity involved, double-check that what you’re doing warrants the additional planning, technology and challenge. Does that daily huddle or weekly team planning session really need to be hybrid just because thirty percent of your team is scheduled to be in the office that day? Information sharing, reviewing progress and touching base could easily continue as a virtual gathering. It might be better to put that extra planning and effort into collaborative, strategic planning or culture-building endeavours, where the stakes are higher. Be discerning about trying to match up the kind of work you’re doing with the type of meeting you need.
Call for Backup
Managing participants together in in-person and virtual environments can make it hard to be present and pick up everyone’s comments, concerns and dynamics. Deputize someone in the session to help you ensure all participants feel supported to participate on an equal footing. If you’re in a room with others, deputize someone to watch the chat and keep an eye on the virtual participants. With greater technological complexity, a meeting producer who handles the technology and connectivity, both for set-up and during the meeting, can relieve stress about tech glitches. Have a dry run to ensure your technology is going to work well. Make sure you have screens, so virtual participants are clearly seen in the room. Aside from the agenda, give each attendee a pre-meeting checklist so everyone is clear about which equipment, apps, or other tools will be used.
Know Who is Where
Be sure to find out in advance how people will be joining your meeting. This will avoid any last-minute surprises that may impact your technology requirements, audio-visual aids or other ways you want people to work together. If people are together, ask them to speak up and to the camera to make a connection with their fellow virtual colleagues – not just to those in the room.
Before the meeting, find out what participants need to feel fully supported and able to participate. Don’t assume that just because everyone became adept at virtual meetings, they will be ready for the different dynamics of a hybrid arrangement. Ask what support they need and check during the meeting to see if any issues have emerged.
Open with an Equal Playing Field
When soliciting views from your team, consider using virtual interactive tools to gather their input rather than asking people to raise their hands and share. Facilitation expert, Rae Ringel, advises that “Technology is an essential part of hybrid meetings, but it shouldn’t be looked at as something for the remote employee only. Instead, normalize the use of digital meeting tools for everyone”.
Some interactive tools I find helpful are Mentimeter and Slido. These tools allow you to engage participants through poll questions, creating word clouds, surveys and quizzes, and more. Similarly, using virtual tools like Mural or Miro, rather than flipcharts, for brainstorming or whiteboard activities ensures that everyone has equal access to information and can contribute.
Check Your Expectations
Allow extra time in your hybrid agenda. If you think a discussion should only take 15-20 minutes, plan for 30 minutes instead. There are many transitions between technologies required to support hybrid facilitation. It takes people time to find their breakout rooms or get their polling tool loaded into a new browser window. Your virtual participants may be handling distractions or other demands on their attention if working from home. These will likely be quite different or even absent for your in-person participants. Leave even more space in your agenda so you don’t add excessive time pressures on your participants and lead to tempers flaring.
Take Action
Review the tips offered and pick one that you’ll try in your next meeting. Reflect afterwards on what worked well, what didn’t, and what you’d do differently the next time.
Resources
Priya Parker, The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters (Riverhead Books, 2020)
Carolyn Ellis, Lead Conversations that Count: How Busy Managers Run Great Meetings, (Rowntree Press, 2021).
Bob Frisch and Cary Green, “What It Takes to Run a Great Hybrid Meeting,” (Harvard Business Review, June 3, 2021)
Author Information: This is an excerpt from Lead Conversations that Count: How Busy Managers Run Great Meetings by Carolyn Ellis (Rowntree Press, 2021). For more information on the book, please visit www.LeadConversationsThatCount.com. This article may be shared provided the author information is included.
