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We talk a lot about meetings, in this blog and with our wonderful clients. 2020 has created a need for another set of best practices when it comes to meetings, as most of these interactions occur virtually these days. Here are a few practical actions you can take to make your online meetings more fun and fruitful:

  • Do you really need to meet? We’ve said before that there are only 4 reasons to hold a meeting. Make sure your meeting is necessary.
  • Start with an icebreaker or teambuilding activity. This may seem like fluff, but it’s a great way to maintain workplace connections, get to know each other better and help those team members who are struggling to balance work and home stressors. Check out some quick virtual teambuilding ideas from our own Lance Satterthwaite.
  • Combat virtual meeting fatigue. Take more frequent breaks, be deliberate about when you use video and ditch those busy backgrounds. (Yes, your palm tree blowing in the wind contributes to meeting burnout, especially if everyone is using a different background. If you’re in a meeting with 5 others, it’s visually like being in five rooms at the same time.)
  • Make it fun. And remember that not everyone will find dressing up as their favorite Disney princess to be fun, so make sure you’re all aligned. Otherwise fun falls flat.
  • Take extra steps with very large meetings, including auto-muting. Humanergy’s David Wheatley and Corey Fernandez share their experiences here.

Have a winning strategy for virtual meetings? Comment below, send us a message or we could Zoom! 🙂

 

Photo by Yogendra Singh on Unsplash