We have collectively hit virtual meeting burnout.
I’ve been working remotely for 11 years and I’ve led or attended more than 10,000 hours of virtual meetings. This included my butt being glued to my chair for almost 8 hours straight for bi-weekly leadership team meetings. Talk about Zoom fatigue!
Due to COVID office shutdowns teams had to jump overnight into becoming fully remote organizations. In doing so they fell back on the two things they knew how to do 1) schedule meetings 2) send emails. This is completely understandable for an emergency situation, but now we need to adjust our ways of working for the long term.
The first question should always be “Do we really need to meet, or is there another way we can get to the same outcome?” Since this has NOT been normal remote work and we are juggling work and life like never before, our time is more precious than ever. An extra minute wasted in an ineffective meeting is a minute being taken away from helping our kids with their schoolwork or checking on a family member or helping our community.
In an article for IDEO I include my answers to these 3 questions:
1. What are the essentials for planning virtual meetings?
2. How can you make virtual meetings as inclusive as possible?
3. How can you keep the momentum going after the meeting?
Contact us to bring Virtual Work Insider’s Leading Effective Virtual Meetings and Presentations workshop to your company.