Leaning Towards the Glow
As preface, this article was written during the early months of the Covid pandemic. Some of the wording may seem strange as we transition into a post-pandemic world. At the time we were all trying to avoid one another and dealing with a world of academic, cultural, and business uses of virtual meetings at previously unrealized scale. This article, I hope, still has value in how to conduct ourselves in a meaningful way in virtual spaces. It does not seek politeness, but rather ways we can introduce success through the remote-meeting solutions we use.
As you lean towards your glowing computers and devices, your body language and behavior, as counter-intuitive as it may seem in these tiny portholes of virtual meetings we’ve been cast into, is more important than ever. A toolbox of virtual meeting behaviors can facilitate meetings, and also help you find success. I will summarize these tools as acts, each addressing emotions, understanding, and communication as a framework for enabling empathy in the virtual world of remote meetings.
Prologue: The Cast of Characters
…with patient ears attend,
what here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 1, Prologue
The set of tools outlined below is about validation, listening beyond simply hearing, admitting faults, and recognizing the emotional needs of others to feel heard, to be recognized as active participants, and most importantly helping others feel invested in as people with ideas of value.
Setting the Scene
Once upon a time I was a user experience designer and I worked closely with client branding and marketing teams. I remember in the early days we’d walk in to clients and warn them, no brand consideration is a brand, and an unconsidered one is unlikely to be very good, how you behave and what it’s like to interact with your organization virtually is a key part of that brand.
For us, slouching, sipping coffee, staring at the glow of our phones while others are speaking on a virtual team meeting is being noticed. If you’re aware of your body language or not, you have a body language and it may be negatively affecting others.
The mannerisms, the social norms we take for granted when we meet in-person are still scrutinized and probably more critically in virtual meeting spaces. Yes, people are sitting there, staring at all the squares of people, quietly interpreting how people are presenting themselves.
Communicating and gesturing intended messages with traditional social signals is much more difficult in the flatland of virtual space. Mastering virtual communication means being aware of how you look, what you’re doing, how you’re encouraging engagement visually, verbally, and emotionally.
Some might wonder if curating your mannerisms is somehow faking or at the very least overthinking things. It is not. Acting properly for the circumstances isn’t something humans have always had. The Egyptians formalized expectation for public life including virtues such as truthfulness and kindness but long after Confucius codified a philosophy of a way of being as a means of achieving desired outcomes via curated investment in the structuring of society and the expectations of interactions between individuals and groups.
In a similar way the French introduced etiquette for the new styles of living and their treatment of the built environment and palace architectures of the day as if the design and experience of the built environment was as sacrosanct as music, sculpture, and painting. One does not laugh through a delicate music performance, nor stomp on the palace flowers, and yet these behaviors had to be codified and learned before they became part of the social contract of daily life. In much the same way, we find ourselves plodding forward in the digital puddles of a world soaked in digital connectivity.
For virtual meeting spaces, acknowledging, understanding, and practicing new etiquette is not a wasteful formality, but is a formalization for defining space, rules of engagement, and a process for progressing discourse. There is nothing fake about utilizing the tool-sets we have available to us for optimizing communication. Being aware of your physical self in a virtual space as seen by others in that virtual space will maximize your experience and your own benefits from the interactions you have.
Act 1: Active Listening, the Art of Asking for Clarification
The quickest way in any social situation to be more like-able, to put others at ease is to simply listen. Listening however isn’t a passive activity. It is something you must present and request. Even if the person you’re engaging with is blathering on and on about something you don’t really want to chat about, you can be an active listener, encouraging them to speak about topics you are interested in learning about. Informing the speaker that you’ve heard them, repeating back a summary of their ideas as you understand them, and asking for more information and clarity informs the speaker that you’re interested and engaged. You’ll find they are delighted that their hard work to convey their ideas has an audience, and in turn they will utilize more energy and inspiration in engaging with you.
In traditional settings we often take many subtle social cues into account to gauge a person’s interest. Without these cues, with only a small square of video or an avatar, the interaction can feel isolating to the speaker. Active listening is something you propose verbally, and will empower everyone in your virtual meeting to listen as well as feel heard.
Act 2: Recognizing Misdirection and Shy Personalities, Creating Safe Spaces in Real-time
An unfortunate side effect of all of life’s interactions is that often people feel forced into settings they prefer not to engage in. The workplace, as much as we may try, is where we encounter this most. Meetings, agreements, and group input are often seen as barriers to true decision making. Recognizing, admitting, and even being humorous about these feelings can set everyone at ease. In person, evasive body language is easier for our brains to parse. Unfortunately for virtual meetings, the evasiveness of the situation presents this as the default mode of the social contract. After-all, we are literally trying to avoid one another.
At the start, or even before an especially important meeting, try to visualize in your mind how each person will approach the meeting. If it’s an especially important meeting, take notes on what you believe will be the chief takeaways, goals, and measures of success for each key stakeholder of the meeting. During the meeting take notes as these predictions are validated, change, or even surprise you. More importantly however is to recognize misdirection or evasive behavior. You may know that a person in the meeting may need a key piece of information or next steps to perform their tasks well. By verbalizing and requesting this information, you can spark conversation between those that need to communicate. In this way you can step in when communication and participation is elusive for some.
As you actively listen and note meeting participant progress against the meeting goals, recognize those who may not have yet had a chance to speak, and do not be afraid to point out that a key piece of information may be helpful for a meeting participant. As some participants may be reluctant to speak simply because they do not believe in the meeting agenda, everyone has personalities and qualities that make them unique. Some people may bring shyness or discomfort to the virtual meeting experience. It’s important to recognize these individuals and provide the active listening contract to them explicitly while asking others on the call to engage in this same social contract. This pop-up safe space will empower your shy or evasive personality types with the chance to speak their mind in a safe and engaging environment. You may be very surprised at the very good ideas that may have remained below the surface.
This particular skill might take some learning. Part of your job as a meeting participant may be to realize and admit that you may be putting someone on the spot. Admitting your own fear that you may be putting someone on the spot, before you do, can help put everyone at ease and help facilitate a better conversation. This is more nuanced but I have never found any situation which was negatively impacted by admitting my fear that I might be putting someone on the spot. Being clear about our own feelings is the foundation to good communication.
Act 3: Admitting Bias
For many this virtualization of the traditional social contracts of our lives is brand new, difficult, scary, and often frustrating. These are all emotions about the conditions of the virtual environment we find ourselves in, and not emotions about the content, meaning, and activities of the meeting itself.
Admit your assumptions. Before going into a meeting, take stock of assumptions you have, about the people, their behaviors, personalities, and goals. List out your own assumptions about how the meeting should and will go. During the meeting, as you gain more knowledge, cross them out, underline them, and replace them. Admitting your assumptions admits your biases if they are behavioral, cognitive, or among the many other types of biases we all have as human beings. By seeing and understanding your biases, you can listen more actively, focus on the proper topics and goals to improve the overall performance and outcomes of the entire meeting.
Act 4: Know your Participants
This Act reminds me of an old root-beer commercial about being thick-headed. In the commercial a job applicant repeatedly pronounces the last name of the interviewer as dumb-ass, but the last name is Dumass. The commercial ends with the interviewer informing the shrinking applicant that the name is pronounced Doo-mah, concluding that it’s good for root-beer but not people to be so thick-headed. While that’s a funny example, making a faux-pas in a virtual meeting can be far more subtle and scuttle a meeting before you understand what even happened.
Understanding what your audience brings to the table is helpful in any situation virtual or not. Cultural differences, name pronunciations, humor, home responsibilities such home-life with children in the background, and even life events can be critical to successful meetings. In some cases, missing important social cues can be very damaging. For example, repeatedly bringing up Covid-19 statistics may be difficult for participants who have been personally affected by the epidemic. It is important to be sensitive to personal situations as participants are often connecting from their personal spaces where these issues are front and center in their lives.
Act 5: Leave no Soldier Behind
I often hear meetings wrapped up quickly with a call for Any Other Business, or a solicitation for final thoughts, as if the final moments of the meeting were up for auction, waiting for the gavel to strike down to declare the meeting and deal closed. In some cases this can be useful, especially in meetings which require decision. However, in many meetings where ideas, choices, and suggestions are the goal, it is best to use the closing of a meeting as a review of the meeting, with a summary of presented information, findings, consensus, and most importantly, actions and expectations people have at the close of the meeting.
Be sure participants close their meeting interface having felt seen and listened to. Even if you have key speaking participants and a large passive audience on the call who won’t have a chance to speak, reviewing the meeting with participants and the meeting minutes will provide participants with the reason for why they participated at all, validating their own emotional commitment and delivering on your social contract of being an active listener.
As with all the other acts, admitting your own feelings will work to your advantage. Admitting confusions, frustrations, or need for validation of ideas, and follow-up actions can serve as clarification for all participants while building trust, empathy and communication. As well, celebrating points of agreement and celebrating the success of the entire group’s collaborative effort will increase the likelihood that everyone will come away with a positive and engaging experience they will look forward to having with you again.
