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 #4: Virtual Meetings That Don’t Suck – Wisdom is in the Room

Transcript of Video

Hi everyone! I’m Carolyn Ellis from BrillianceMastery.com and thank you for joining me for this short video! I’m doing a series that I’m calling “Virtual Meetings that Don’t Suck”.

In this week’s video, I want to share with you a principle that I call “The Wisdom is in the Room.” This has been a challenge, even when we were meeting in person — how do you really hear from everybody? How do you ensure that you’re getting a diversity of views and that it’s not just the people who are comfortable, maybe a little bit more extroverted with their leadership or their communication style, who are finding easy to make their points in a group discussion? What do you do about those voices that are a little bit held back or maybe need a little bit more reflection time? I acknowledge that this concept of being able to hear from everybody and tapping into the brilliance that is in the people that work with you has always been a challenge.

But here’s the thing – now that we’ve gone to virtual, it’s even a little bit easier for people to hang back and to escape notice. Maybe they’ve got their camera off all the time – but is it really because their room is messy or something? There are solutions around this. We need to be even more attentive to ensuring that we are leaving space for people to have their voices be heard, that we are inviting in that wisdom so we can harvest it, access it and build on it.

Here’s a few quick tips for you to help you really tap into the wisdom in the room. One is to realize it’s really not about you. We need to make it about them. The  PowerPoint decks, the snazzy little embedded videos and things, that’s all fine. But that’s all information coming out at people, right? What do we do to make it more about them?

Give them opportunities in your meetings to have some small breakout discussions. Maybe there’s a brainstorming activity that you can design in as a way for people to digest and really look at some of the information that has been presented to them. Perhaps there’s the use of the chat to let people express themselves in a way that feels more comfortable for them to be able to contribute. You might even need to think about processes outside of the meeting to allow that flow of information and new insights and perspectives to continue beyond the meeting.

We need to be more creative about how we access the wisdom in the room, because that’s where we will find new solutions. That’s where we will find synergy. And that’s where when people are feeling really heard. That’s when you’re going to get the commitment to getting the work done, that you and your organization need to really make progress on.

I hope that’s been helpful for you. If you need any further support about this, feel free to reach out either through my website or via email and I’d be happy to support you with helping you design virtual meetings that don’t suck.

Have a great day and thank you so much!

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 2 – Less is More
Tip 3 – Engage at the Start
Tip 5 – Dynamic Game Plan
Tip 6 – Watch Your Costs
Tip 7 – Digestion Time
Tip 8 – Leading Through Connecting