In response to the external messages of gloom and doom – how about seizing the opportunity? You can save time and money and Go Green by meeting on the Web.
Have you had it with the gloom and doom economic predictions? I have. All this fear mongering about the economy makes me think people are losing sight of the opportunity.
I’m not a financial expert. But I’ve weathered a lot of tumultuous storms – economic, social and cultural. Many of my clients are in volatile industries.
This is precisely why it’s important to have a virtual meeting communication plan. You can save huge amounts of time and money by meeting virtually.
And once you do, you, your team, your clients and your entire organization may never go back.
It’s easy to get face-to-face with the people you need to – without having distance be the deterring factor. No expensive flights. No time-consuming traffic jams. No stressful commutes.
Should these economic times continue, you will be uniquely positioned to succeed. With a virtual communication plan, you’ll be at the front of successful companies.
You’ll already be ‘working the plan’ to save time, cut travel costs, eliminate facility fees.
Plus, you’ll be at the front of the curve on ‘Going Green.’ By holding your meeting virtually, you’ll be able to cut your carbon footprint. This means your business will be helping the environment instead of contributing to environmental nightmares.
Less gas consumption from commuting. Less polluting from air travel. Less costs for facility heating and cooling. Less impact from waste accumulation during in-person meetings.
Yes, you can pat yourself on the back for building a communication plan for web meetings.
Consider the impact of being able to meet, train, sell and support from anywhere. Powerful! You’ll find you cannot only hold meetings where everyone comes; you can also hold more productive meetings.
Clients, teammates and peers are more willing to meet- when they don’t have to lose one, two or more days with travel. In fact, many distance teams find they have higher collaboration and better results meeting virtually – than they do meeting in person.
Consider the attention span. You know how hard it is to keep everyone’s attention for a full day meeting. Interruptions abound. Cellphones. Pagers. PDA’s.
Many meetings are fraught with disturbances, distractions and interruptions. Out of a full-day in-person meeting, you may have only an hour of uninterrupted dialogue time.
Why not admit it? Use your time and your team’s time more wisely. Meet for a strict one-hour meeting. Not a minute longer. Be ruthless with respecting the time.
This may be radical if you are part of an organization with mushy boundaries about time. If your organizational culture includes poor time habits, you have to set down the new way of doing business.
This will include, at the very minimum, a few ground rules. Make sure that everyone agrees.
Rule 1 – Start on time.
It’s better to get online a few minutes early for conversational chitchat. Don’t let this run over into your official starting time. Respect the people who show up on time and get started.
Rule 2 – Schedule with respect to various time zones.
Don’t just schedule meetings to be convenient to your time zone, or to the corporate office. If you have a widely dispersed virtual audience, rotate the times. People will appreciate this respect and be more willing to attend at inconvenient times, knowing that their time zone preference is on the rotation.
Rule 3 – Get in and get out.
Use the group meeting time for things, which must be discussed by everyone. Schedule sub-group meetings for items that can be addressed in smaller groups without the entire team.
Rule 4 – Guide the flow.
Resist the temptation to go down paths, add agenda items and allow the call to expand.
One organization I worked with used to schedule half-hour meetings – only to allow them to expand to 2-hour meetings. Everyone on the team was depressed and resistant to attending.
Once they committed to one-hour meetings, they were able to stick to the times. Attendance and participation soared.
Rule 5 – Share the timekeeping.
It’s a lot easier to stay on track if you can moderate and facilitate with someone else taking on the role of timekeeper.
This role can rotate around the team. And, when you get feedback from the timekeeper, be responsive. Don’t add the awful phrase, "Oh, and another thing…"
Rule 6 – End on time.
Just like starting on time, you will win participation if you end on time. People will attend your meetings. They will get engaged. All because they know you mean what you say. You are reliable. You respect their time.
This is not a little thing. Don’t even go over by a minute. Be precise and win the respect of your team.
Rule 7 – Defer to off-line.
If there is an urgent or unresolved issue, set the next time to discuss with the people who need to be there. Make yourself available to solve problems and discuss complex situations.
You may not have time to address these issues in the full group meeting. But, do not gloss over glaring issues and pretend they don’t exist.
Respond. Set the next time. Be willing to meet in private. Or to meet in person. Let your team know that you are committed. Not just in words. But in deeds.
Use this time to strengthen your skills in virtual meetings. Demonstrate to your teams, clients and organization that you can close deals faster, train employees and be more responsive – all via virtual meetings.
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