Editor's note: Howard Tierskey is an entrepreneur and co-author of "Impactful Online Meetings: How to Run Polished Virtual Working Sessions That Are Engaging and Effective—Zoom|Webex|GoToMeeting|Skype|Google Hangouts." This is an edited version of an article titled, “Five Mistakes NOT to Make When Holding Online Meetings.”
With the pandemic forcing so many employees to work from home, no doubt you're holding tons of virtual meetings. Working from home is quickly becoming "the new normal." The COVID-19 pandemic kicked the work from home movement into high gear, and many experts believe it will continue long after the crisis has passed. But before we can optimize this new way of working, we're all going to have to get proficient at one of the biggest work-from-home fundamentals: the virtual meeting.
Remote meetings are inherently different from in-person meetings. If you're not used to running them, you're going to make tons of mistakes. And those mistakes can have major ramifications in terms of how well people perform once they log off and get back to work.
The good news is that well-run online meetings can be extremely powerful. In fact, according to the Harvard Business Review, online meetings can be even more effective than in-person meetings when done right. But first you need to be aware of what not to do.
Here are five mistakes newbies commonly make during virtual meetings:
If you are seeking to bring people together to share information, come up with solutions,
make decisions, coordinate activities and/or socialize, you will be successful if you:
If you do all of these correctly, you will have high-impact online meetings. If you don't, there's going to be a lot of awkwardness and inefficiency. Worse, bad meetings can lead to bad workplace performance, which is the last thing any of us need right now.
When everyone has their cameras on, you can expect a 200%-plus ...