Run nifty conference calls while working-from-home.
Upgrading old-fashioned meetings to suit the new normal.
Are you Working-from-home, but still doing online meetings precisely in the same way you used to do them before COVID-19? Set-up the meeting invitation, often covering several hours, then when everyone is in, fire-up the impressive hundred and three Keynote slide-deck, most probably speak for an hour and a half, then ask everyone whether they have any questions. You know the drill, we all have been in those.
With the lock-down and social distancing kicking off, we also converted all our meetings to be remote. We didn’t think much; Afterall, we have years of experience in running conference calls online. We thought what a piece of cake.
Soon we were proven wrong. Data and insights showed we were dropping the ball worst than the 2015 Cleveland Indians. It was like a game of telephone (or as you may know it — the Russian scandal or the pass the message game). Meanwhile, we began to notice that some participants started multi-tasking during the meetings while others were just wondering on the Linkedin (a few updating their profile and resume). Eventually, we had to admit that we were wrong, and we didn’t know anything about running conference calls on a lock-down.
We were puzzled, a once relatively successful method now a complete disaster. We agree, even before the virus conference calls were not perfect, but they prove to be useful, especially when you are working in distributed teams. Has COIVD-19 infected our beloved conference-calls? The answer was right in front of us.
It is the CONTEXT!
COVID-19 changed the entire context, when the context changes, tools once worked can fail. This virus changed everything from working hours, locations, and emotional states of the participants. We were still trying with the same medium, tools, and scripts while context has stood on its’ hands both physically and physiologically.
Before COVID-19, we used to join calls from our comfortable office desks with almost zero distractions. We had high-speed internet connections and ergonomically designed meeting rooms or seating arrangements. Now, we have to log in from our kitchen tables with laggy WI-FI shared with your remote schooling kids. If it’s not your partners’ chore list, adorable kids, at least annoying neighbour who thinks lock-down means drill playtime, are now contributing to the madness.
As everyone in the company now wants to have conference-calls or remote one-on-ones, the participants have to join back-to-back calls throughout the day. They often turn-up to yours exhausted and bored. We noticed some had found creative hacks to avoid boredom, including multi-tasking and reducing the call volume to enjoy the Spotify playlist. Besides, because of the circumstances, most of us are generally startled, sad or even depressed to some degree. Which too contributes to the failure of online meetings.
We don’t have to be rocket-scientists to figure-out that the conference-call scripts couldn’t stay the same. We had to do something. We had to invent new meeting-scripts. And we did (or more precisely, doing). We have been using these tactics for a while now, and results are encouraging. (no, we are not ready to do a PhD thesis on this yet — but we think these learning are as good enough to spread across, under creative-common license of course — haha I know, that is a horrible joke).
Break the fricking script
The key to running nifty working-from-home calls is to break the script. Your audience might have spent their entire workday on back-to-back meetings. If you want their attention and more importantly, if you want them to remember what yours is about — Break the fricking script.
As we discussed earlier, all meetings have a standard script. No one remembers anything standard. As Heath brothers describe in The Power of Moment, people cherish peaks, not pits nor valleys. Your ambition must be to be the best meeting of their day or the week.
Breaking the script is way easier than you think. Here are the eight things we do to break the hand.
1. Do homework
If it’s your meeting, you probably owe something to the participants. Afterall their opportunity cost could be the first steps of their toddler. Therefore show some respect for their time. Do your homework, prepare beforehand, tell them what to expect in advance, ideally what’s in it form them.
2. Join before everyone else
Try log in to the call at least three minutes before everyone, Afterall it’s your call, and you should be there at the gate saying hello to everyone.
3. Start with a bang
Don’t let your friendly greetings make the start of the meeting bland or unnoticeable. Do something different — We love adding themed matched music or a movie clip. For example, when we did two sessions short workshop, we started each with Gurdiance of the Galaxy tracks and named each meeting volume one and volume two. We know that you can be creative. If you are stuck, think like a conference keynote speaker. What are the notable things they did to signal the start?
4. Use a teleprompter
Suppose it is a speech mode meeting, where you want to sell something or convince others to follow you. Design your message in advance, practice it. We even prepare the entire speech as a script. One advantage of being remote is that you can just read it off your screen. If Obama uses a teleprompter, who are we to argue otherwise.
5. Design the workshop, Go visual
If it is a group decision-making meeting, use an excellent whiteboarding tool. We love Mural, but any other whiteboarding tool will work too. But never start with a blank Mural, it is disrespectful and shows that you are not prepared. Use a matching template or make a design on your own.
6. Give everyone a reason to be there.
Make sure everyone in the meeting has something to do, not just the noisest. Don’t you hate you log in to zoom call, and put you on mute, no responses to any comments, feeling like a ghost? You might have got bored and wandered into your next browser tab or TikTok — don’t let that happen. You invited everyone in the call for a reason, let them feel they are welcomed, if they are not, just let them have a free hour — don’t be an ass. Best way to achieve this is by developing a win out of the meeting for everyone attended, then prepare the script accordingly.
7. Go short
Don’t do long meetings. Go as short as possible. You don’t want to be the jerk you made them miss their toddlers’ first steps. Don’t let meeting tools’ default duration fool you.
8. Break the chain
Break the chain, You might be having a bad day, but don’t make another ten people’s mood terrible because of that. Be the best self you can be. Cheer yourself up before the meeting. We love Obama on Youtube, but If Cat videos are your thing, we are not here to judge.
Remember you are competing with other meeting hosts of their day for their attention as well as distractions and discomforts around them.
Break the Script, Create the best damn meeting of their life.
