Making an Impact in a Remote World
Working from home is likely to be a part of our lives well into the future. There may be more of a return if it becomes commonplace to earn less from home, but it is certainly something we all need to get to grips with.
In any meeting or presentation — virtual or physical — the most important aspects to persuade people are to:
- Be credible as a presenter. Credentialise yourself, your ideas, and anyone you introduce. Provide your credentials, and be honest. If you’re an expert in .NET, say so. If not, maybe you’ve been focussed on it for the past 18 months. Look professional, be clear, prepare what you want to say, script it (especially at first or in new situations). And we have all seen those slide decks from vendors that have a slide packed with the logos of household or industry names to show how credible their product is.
- Appeal to the listener’s emotions. “I have a dream” is over the top for many IT projects, but we can still appeal to people’s desire to stay ahead, save time or help the environment. You can also appeal to negative emotions like fear or anger — be careful though. And remember, something that is important to one person may not be to another.
- Use logic and evidence — facts, figures and data-points. Make sure they’re all correct (otherwise you affect your credibility) and relevant — don’t overdo it.
Those three bullet points were called ethos, pathos and logos respectively by Aristotle over 2,000 years ago in his Treatise on Rhetoric. See what I did there? Credentialised my writing via props to the second most bodacious philosophizer in ancient Greece, after Socrates. But don’t use references to Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure to credentialise yourself.
Now, I’d better start talking tech before the Elders of the Tech Blog edit me. That’s the thing with pathos — you need to know your audience.
Although harder online, it’s still important to make eye contact (look at the camera, NOT the screen), use facial expressions and open body language. That means turn your camera on! All these things build trust.
Think of yourself as being on TV! Think how a news reader looks. Start there! Then use this checklist:
Cut out distractions and noise. Stop your phone or laptop binging and, assuming you can, find a quiet location and close the door.
Practice, with a friend or your team, muting people, sharing PowerPoint slides, drawing on slides, putting people in breakout rooms without losing them, etc.
Check you have the bandwidth. You can’t beat an ethernet cable!
Check your camera and microphone. Laptop cameras are good these days but can be in the wrong place if you have two screens giving an endoscopic view up your nose. Have the camera at eye level — you could prop your laptop up. I try to avoid headsets — it creates a “distance” — but if you do use one — perhaps to avoid background noise, position the mic so you don’t pop your p’s — experiment and check with a friend or colleague.
Get the lighting right. Avoid light from behind that makes you look like a wraith in a horror movie and avoid light from below that makes you look like the guy in the horror movie that gets killed early on by the wraith. Lots of natural light from in front of you is good.
Sort out your background. You could use a virtual background with imagery that projects a corporate look — perhaps your offices — not the Starship Enterprise (unless you actually are Captain James T. Kirk). Possibly better is your actual background as it adds authenticity. Just make sure it doesn’t add the unwashed pots and your stockpile of toilet paper and pasta.
Practice key presentation skills:
- Know what you want to say — script it.
- Don’t “erm” (breathe in instead if you have difficulty). Similarly, avoid “like”, “maybe” and other hedge words.
- Use gestures — three fingers counting off three points, open arms in greeting, wide gesture indicating a big problem. Be careful not to go off screen.
- Pause for effect.
Make strong statements:
- “We will deliver X by the end of the month”. Don’t spend more than 30 seconds otherwise people will have forgotten it by the time they leave the meeting.
Use headline statements:
- Just like a newspaper headline. Open the conversation with a headline, “Project X is on track and there are no major issues”. What you say afterwards will be taken in that positive context. Do make sure that the headline fits the story, of course.
We’ll be working at home and remotely in the future more than we ever have, but it’s not the revolution that many would have you believe. It’s just the next step on the journey described by some old Greek dude — who was writing about the big changes of his day — the advent of democracy and hence the need to speak out. Which means it’s something you’ve been practicing your whole life. You just need to remember to take yourself off mute.
