How You Facilitate Your Team and Client Meetings Matters—Even More So When Your Team Is Remote
If you’ve led a team or a working group for any amount of time, you likely already know the basics of running a productive meeting: an agenda, space for discussion, a clear decision-making approach, building of camaraderie and goodwill, and capturing any open items or next steps. In environments where we have cohesive teams that meet frequently in-person and have well defined work with few trust or conflict issues, the meeting process is almost effortless.
In normal times.
In just a few short weeks, we have witnessed a worldwide shift to WFH or “working from home”—an acronym that did not exist in the modern vernacular until about a week or two ago. During this time, we have received emails from clients and colleagues asking for advice on a very specific aspect of WFH, i.e., how do I design and facilitate effective virtual meetings for my teams and my clients? It is both an art and a science. Let’s look at both.
What Works and What Doesn’t, Both Remotely and In-Person
Like two magnets that can either attract or repel each other depending on how they are positioned, there are forces that bring groups together or push us farther apart. Structural and team issues that can make meetings more challenging are well known. They include unclear or evolving tasks or environments, infrequent contact leading to a lack of cohesion, competing agendas and politics, favoritism, unevenly shared information, interpersonal conflict, and cultural and other differences (social categorization). These forces create barriers in our interactions and gaps in our communications. They raise emotions and lower our ability to be rational and conciliatory.
Over the last decade or so, we have facilitated workshops on meeting design and facilitation, leading remote teams, and leading through uncertainty. These somewhat disparate topics are now coalescing into a trifecta of possibility. The transition to WFH is presenting leaders with an opportunity to lead their teams and clients not only remotely, but also through uncertainty as well. We are in the messy middle as we rework how we work—all amidst increased levels of stress, anxiety, and uncertainty. Where to begin?
With the people.
As human beings we desire to be heard, understood, and valued for the strengths we bring to our work. Our strongest “glue” is social cohesion. A socially cohesive group demonstrates trust and works toward the well-being of all its members. Cohesive teams and groups unite around a common goal, with members focusing on their collective success. Cohesion is built through social and task interactions, perceived unity, and positive emotions. It enhances work and improves morale. Why are juries sequestered? Why are recruits put through bootcamps? These are tactics to quickly build social cohesion.
Let’s imagine a specific example. You are working for a non-profit and have met several potential donors. In your interactions, you realize that they share common interests and traits and would enjoy meeting. What might you do? Maybe you could have a dinner or a cocktail hour they are all invited to. You take special care to make sure they are warmly introduced to one another, and these introductions are done in such a way to spark conversations. You see the energy and connections and congratulate yourself for a job well done.
Now, take that into a remote environment. What are your options? You invite them to a remote get-together—which is already a bit weird. You have lost the ability to provide the shared food (unless you got really creative and had it delivered to each of their homes). Introductions that would normally include warm handshakes, eye contact, and physically escorting them to meet one another are not possible or much more difficult online.
In remote interactions—and in some high risk or complex in person situations as well—there are things that we know are important that are muted, and there are things we may not realize we do that are amplified. One-on-one consideration, personal touches, and body language don’t work the same way. They might be missed or misconstrued. Conversely, a comment that normally might be ignored if followed by a warm gesture “in real life,” in the online environment could be taken out of context or blown out of proportion and seriously erode trust.
Remote Meeting Basics
There are a number of things that you can do to improve your online meetings. One of the most important is, if at all possible, use video. Neuroscience research tells us that the human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text, and 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual. Seeing people’s expressions—and sometime even their pets or kids!—improves team communication and cohesion.
The second important step is to take time to check in and learn about what is going on before diving into the work. How people are feeling (especially so right now during this time of heightened stress) news, family updates, etc. Working remotely should not mean that we neglect connecting with colleagues on a personal as well as a professional level.
Third, use online collaboration spaces instead of email to share and track important documents, information and notes—Microsoft Teams, Basecamp, Dropbox, Slack—something which everyone on your team has easy access to so that important information is shared evenly and in real time.
And finally, don’t neglect meeting best practices. You still need an agenda, clear goals for the meeting, notes, timekeeping, active participation, celebration of accomplishments and capturing of next steps. In addition, give careful consideration with regard to process and how you will maximize group input and build cohesion. Here are a few sample activities you can use.
Example Remote Meeting Activities and Tools
· Getting to Know Each Other—A great activity for teams that have to get up-and-running quickly where the individuals don’t know each other well is an exercise called “I am.” It allows everyone on the team to reflect on their own personalities, interests, and tendencies, and then share these with other. Simply ask everyone on the team to complete the sentence, “I am …” and share that sentence with the team. This exercise enables everyone to feel both heard and seen and to build cohesion by discovering similarities with others on the team.
· Maximizing Group Input—Too often, one or two people can take over the content of a meeting. To combat this and ensure everyone’s opinion is heard and taken into consideration, we love to use written brainstorming and multi-voting. In written brainstorming, everyone is given a Post-it and asked to write multiple suggestions or answers to a well-framed question. These are then displayed on wall or whiteboard, and people in the team are then asked to organize the Post-its into affinity groups. These same small teams condense the key points to a single idea that are added to a board or flip chart. The next step, multi-voting, means that everyone is given stickers with a point value, and allowed to place them next to ideas according to their preference. Scores are tallied and the activity produces a balanced representation of what the group thinks—plus you’ve engaged everyone in a fun activity that builds…guess what…cohesion! There are some great tools out there like Padlet and Mural that support online collaborative brainstorming. Online breakout rooms can be used to great effect for small group work. And, like any meeting or social gathering, the key is to make a plan that results in a balance of discussion and interaction, structured problem exploration and problem solving, and building understanding and connections between the people in the “room.”
· The Power of Images—Images can be a very powerful and flexible tool. For example, in a program where we teach the key concepts of motivation, we ask everyone in the group to provide an image—any image—that motivates them. These are displayed to the entire group in a slideshow format, one after another. No commentary, no music, just the images. Invariably, among these we see inspirational statements, beautiful landscapes, high mountains, sports, mansions, vacations, and, of course, spouses, children, and pets. The take-away? Our motivations are different and equally important. To motivate others, we don’t look to what we want, but rather we ask others what is most motivating to them. Images can be used in a multitude of different ways online and can help spark a very generative discussion.
Managers and leaders can benefit tremendously from learning facilitation skills—both online and “in real life.” We often say that if the conversation is the relationship, then the team meeting is the team dynamic. It is during these meetings where a healthy team dynamic is supported and nurtured. If you would like to learn more and develop your facilitation skills further, one of our favorite resources is Ingrid Bens. Ingrid has written a couple of terrific books on facilitation and offers an online course.
There may also be times when it is helpful for you to partner with an external facilitator to co-design and facilitate your meeting. When does it make sense to do so?
When a Facilitator Can Help
Expert facilitators are masters of processes and people. They bring experience and tools that smooth out difficult situations and make teams more productive. This is especially helpful if you want a partner to attend to group process and group dynamics. For example, we are often asked to facilitate a meeting when the team leader wants to delegate the oversight and management of group process so they can focus on the content as a participant. Increasingly, we are being asked to not only facilitate virtual meetings, but to provide guidance on how to maximize the capabilities of online tools in such a way that increases learning and connection. For many people, this is their first experience working remotely and many are experiencing a feeling of disconnection in addition to the feelings of stress and overwhelm that accompany our current global uncertainty. If you would like to brainstorm ways in which you might do so, we are office hours (at no charge), just email us for an appointment, info@academicleadershipgroup.com.
A Final Thought
Today we are practicing “social distancing” and remote work is fast become the norm for many people. We are all participating in a grand experiment wherein many of us are beginning to understand just how much we crave social connection. Kindness, compassion, understanding, listening, collaboration, and support are core human traits—all of which can be nurtured online if we open ourselves up to creating an environment that supports them. We look forward to seeing you online if you would like to brainstorm how.