How to chair your on-line meetings [for managers new to managing newly home-based teams]
You should read this if you are newly managing a newly home-based team or you manage managers who are, and you're trying to figure out how to chair your online meetings.
4 working days ago bosses in the UK were advised to home-base their workforce and I wrote an article suggesting how your organisational culture might change, and some things you might like to start doing differently to make sure you and your people are doing what should be done and not doing what should not be done. Lots of you have been in touch with me directly. The first theme is...
How do I chair meetings when everyone's in different rooms?
4 days in and I'm hearing some themes:
I can't tell if my people are listening [their eyes are all over the place]
I can't tell if people understand what I'm asking of them [and if they don't they could well rush off and start doing things which don't need doing and or them in a way which causes more issues]
Even when I make it clear I want to hear from everyone, I'm not hearing from everyone [and now more than ever we need to be able to collaborate and co-produce because we are all so interdependent]
I don't know how to chair and be able to take part without dominating the meeting
[BTW, I'm assuming here, that you know what outcome you are trying to achieve and how you'll know you've achieved it. And I'm also assuming that the people you are meeting know what outcome you are trying to achieve and how they'll know they've achieved it].
None of these issues are unique to online meetings, so if you're suddenly recognising them as issues for you then a good place to start is by understanding what else has changed which has made them visible to you. If you and your people usually meet face to face, then the 'what else' changes are [1] you're no longer in physical, proximal contact. You can't see if their dog's walked in or their toddler's playing under the desk; you can't get a hunch that Mary hasn't understood and follow her out of the meeting to check; and you can't shimmy alongside Alberto's workstation and see what he's actually working on. And [2] because you can't shimmy you're feeling you don't know enough about what's going on which feels risky.
Have you come across Nancy Kline's Time to Think? Great book, simple concept. I think there's even a Ted Talk. Here's my take on it:
Establish a ground rule that you will ask everyone individually, by name, to contribute to each agenda item, that everyone can talk for as long as they wish to, without interruption, so that they can get their point across.
If you do this then you don't need to worry that you don't have the usual eye contact because you know that you'll hear from them in a few seconds. And you don't need to worry if they've understood because you'll be hearing from them in a few seconds. And you don't need to worry about the usual 'loudies' hi-jacking people's thinking because you know you'll be hearing from everyone.
You'll also know where you need to spend more time and on what agenda item. [Interestingly if you create the conditions where people can speak without being interrupted, everyone will think better and more concisely].
It's true that joining in whilst chairing online meetings is tough. You could try handing over the chairing of any agenda item you feel really strongly about. I can help you with this if you've got tricky meetings coming up that would benefit from an independent chair. Get me on candyperry@concinnityltd or call me on [44] 7710427646