14. Leadership: Creating Engaging and Effective Virtual Events

Hey, my friend. Welcome back to Leadership in a Nutshell, where we're cracking the code of the Driven Mind. I am your host, Kenny Chapman, and in this episode we are going to talk about creating engaging and effective virtual meetings. We all have been through this time. Now, let's put that in air quotes. During these times, this particular time, we, whatever it is, is right. And here we are. Now we get an opportunity to start playing the game at the highest level possible. Hopefully you're already doing that. If you're a fan of ours, if you're following what we've got going here in this Leadership in a Nutshell podcast, then you know that this is about making things happen. This isn't about sitting on the sidelines. This isn't about wondering what's going to happen to me next. This is about driving things forward. And if you feel that way, I do invite you to join our PR private Facebook group. We've started a new group that's you can go to KennyChapman.com group KennyChapman.com group. It's a free group, but it's a private group and you do have to answer a couple of questions. We only want leaders in there and we want a safe environment for you to be able to share with each other. When we start talking about topics like this, where we're like, hey, virtual meetings, I'm engaging my team. I'm running some, maybe training meetings, I'm having some communication meetings. How do I get better? I had one blow up in my face. I had a super big challenge happen to me. I want to have a community where you feel comfortable to be yourself, ask the questions and let all of us help each other because none of us have it all figured out. And those that are telling us that they've got it all figured out, every time you turn around, something changes and there's something different to pay attention to, some new regulation, whatever. Enough of that. Let's talk about it today. I got four things that I really want you to focus on when you're creating your own virtual meetings. Like I said, this can be different platforms. It can be different ways of. Maybe you're having a monthly communication meeting company wide and some of your team is now virtual. Some of you may run multiple locations, so you always have some of your team virtual. So, you know, for myself at the Blue Collar Success Group, the company meetings that I attend, the sometimes I'm on the road, sometimes I'm at headquarters. In Phoenix, we have, we have team members. In Florida, we have team members In Pennsylvania, we have team members in, well, I guess we're in two parts of Florida, so I almost said that differently. And then we've got, you know, our location in Arizona, but all these different things happening. We know that there are some meetings that flat out suck, right? Buddy of mine, Cameron Harold, wrote a book called Meetings Suck, and it was actually a kind of a fun read. And it's like one of those perspective deals. And you go, hey, wait a minute, here's the reality. We all know that meetings can be very challenging when done in person. When you're literally looking at the people that you're trying to engage and influence. And now they're behind a screen now, sometimes they don't want to turn the camera on now. You have no way of reaching out and going, hey, by the way, are you still with me? Right? Or do you. Because now with technology and the platforms that we're utilizing and that are becoming at our beck and call to make an influence and to really create driving change moving forward, you've got to embrace these things and become better at it. So today this is all about. What do those look like? Four different things. The first thing that I want you to write down, think about this. If you're driving, please don't write this down. If you're watching this on YouTube, make sure that you're taking notes and you're not driving and watching you get it right. So the first thing is you've got to be prepared and be on early. And you might go, wow, Kenny, Big Shake, you know, mover and shaker. Be prepared. Of course I'm going to be prepared. I'm getting on my team meeting. Ah, hang on a second. I've seen some of your team meetings. I've attended some meetings where the host is getting on kind of last minute, grabbing the last drink of water and, hmm, let me have a sip of water before I get started. Let me see. Let me kind of wipe the. What do they call it, the sleep out of my eyes because I just rolled out of bed. Everybody makes the jokes, oh, I've got my shorts on. I've got my different stuff. See, I'm very gifted in this time because I've been virtual for over 10 years doing training and different things by camera, by meetings. What. The best thing that's happened to us that have been doing virtual training for a long time is the platforms are now getting better. And so when you get on, you know, you what I say be prepared and get on early. What do I mean by that? You can Use the same software, the same platform, like time after time after time, day after day after day. And all of a sudden you log in and It's Wednesday at 9 and you're ready to do your meeting and something's haywire. Literally at the time I'm recording this, I had a Zoom meeting. We use Zoom as a platform a lot of times. And I had a Zoom meeting with somebody yesterday afternoon. I changed my microphone situation. I went over to a different place where I was going to take the meeting, and I had no sound. For whatever reason, I had to restart my computer, had no idea. And I was actually attending his meeting. So I was the one that was kind of out of sorts and it was just a private consulting situation, so it wasn't a big deal. But if I was hosting that meeting, I would make sure that I'm on early and know my technology. Number two, write that down. Make sure that you know your tech well, know the platform well. Like I said, we use Zoom a lot. I used to use a ton of GoToWebinar back in the day. I ran some WebEx. Oh my gosh. That was a little challenging. Sorry if you're a WebEx fan or you're part of the company, but for me it was very cumbersome to use. And so whatever it is, if you're using PowerPoint slides, know your PowerPoint slides. If you're using Mac and have different how Mac connects. If you're using. I can't say it because I'm a PC guy. What's. I'm trying to think of the slideshow keynote that Apple uses. If you're utilizing Keynote or something like that, whatever it is, I don't care. And neither does your audience. What they care about is that, you know, and if you're doing this for your own team, then you look a little bit better prepared as a leader to lead them through crazy times. If you can at least figure out your PowerPoint or your slideshow presentation when you're getting in front of them. So, number one, be prepared, get on early. Number two, know your tech and platform well. You know, when you think about, oh, well, Kenny, we use Zoom. Okay, cool. Do you use Zoom meetings? Do you or do you use Zoom webinar? Two different things. How do you do the settings? Do you set up the settings ahead of time? Do you allow the chat box to come up right away? Do you have a question box separate from the chat box? Do you have people come in muted right away? Do people go into waiting room prior to the meeting? Do you have things that they have to click and sign before they go in. Are you utilizing chat rooms? Are the. All these different things? So if you're running a bigger company and you have different levels of engagement, which I'm going to talk about in a moment, you got to make sure that you know your platform inside and out at the level you're using. As I mentioned, I use Zoom a lot for one on one coaching, for group trainings, for sessions that I do, leadership trainings that I put on and different things like that. We use it at one of the companies that I own for meetings and different things. All of these different things. My team of coaches uses it. However, I don't know everything that Zoom does, and quite frankly, I don't want to know everything that it does. What I do want to know is everything that it does for me in the way that it does for me, and I want you to be mindful of that. Don't learn everything about everything. You want to be an expert at the things that matter and drive your business forward. Okay, now let's get to number three, ground rules. Write it down. Set ground rules, especially for team meetings. If you're getting your team together and maybe it's just your leadership, team leaders always have a reason to have something else going. Or if your manager is getting together, if you're the primary leader of the business, if you're a manager listening right now or watching right now, if you're on the YouTube part of our podcast, whatever it is, sometimes managers, you've got to hold your leaders and owners and board members accountable too, because everybody's busy and everybody's got this going on. And so then it's like, oh, well, let me cut off my video for a minute so I can handle this thing or whatever. What are your ground rules? Because if you're going to be there, then be there. If you're going to have a meeting, have a meeting. If you're going to have a meeting, be productive with it. If you're going to set apart set, like literally set company asset time, which turns into dollars and cents, which actually shows up eventually on your profit and loss statement and tied to your balance sheet, then you have got to be effective with this time. Very, very critical, very, very important. Nothing happens effectively. If you don't have some ground rules set up. You don't have to be all crazy about it. You don't have to beat the hammer and drop the gavel and all that. But hey, you know, so one of the techniques that I'll Use sometimes if I can see one of our team members is kind of squirrel in or now in the days of two screens, like, maybe I'm over here for a minute, let me look at this screen, screen for a second. I'll just stop what I'm doing, give them a moment and say, okay, cool, you know, or if you see somebody, just go, okay, you got something here. I'll hang on to make that point. I'll stop talking. I'll wait until. Okay, you ready now? Because you want them on camera, too. If you're running meetings for less than even 50 people, it's a really good thing to have people on camera and have them turn their camera on. It's not like, oh, well, you know, I don't have a good background behind me or whatever. Who cares about the background? I'm traveling at the time that I'm shooting this episode. So you can get upset about the background if you want, but if you're going to get stuck on that, then you're not here to get the information that I'm sharing. The point is that I'm going to get on camera today. I'm going to speak to you through the listening podcast if you're listening on one of our audio platforms. But if you're watching this, then I want you engage in what I'm saying. And that means I've got to be up and I, yeah, I had to do my hair today. I had to take a shower and actually shave for you, didn't I? And I did that because this is important. And the same is true with your company meetings. If you let your team off the hook, they will take the hook and they won't shower and they'll roll out of bed right before and hair. I don't care if they show up and their hair is not done. I just want them to show up and see it so they take it seriously. Last and absolutely not least, probably the most important thing is the facilitate collaboration. You are the facilitator here. The world has changed from when you could just walk around the room and tap. I love. One of the hardest things that I do is right now because I can't just walk around this room like I want to. I'm even trying not to move my hands too much to distract you if you're watching this on camera and picture that if you're listening for me, right? But I can't walk around. I like to move. That's how I came up as a speaker, as a trainer, I, I move the room. I quote Unquote, what they call work the room. Right? We don't have that opportunity. Now. What I would recommend for you, though, if you're facilitating, is to stand. If you can stand up, you're just going to be more engaged, you're going to have more energy flowing, you're going to breathe better, all those different types of things. But you've got to facilitate collaboration. If you're running bigger meetings, make sure you have a platform and a software that allows you to do breakout rooms and, and have people break into small groups and you can bounce around and check on those things. If you're running your own team meetings, company meetings, try to keep them digestible to where you're making sure you're creating facilitation, you're making sure everybody gets an opportunity to talk, everybody has a chance to speak, everybody has a chance to share, and everybody has a chance to be heard. So let's recap this. Be prepared, be on early. Know your tech and your platform. Be make sure that you set ground rules. What are you willing to allow and what are you not willing to allow? And lastly, facilitate that collaboration, my friend. Implement these four things and your virtual meetings will improve. You'll get better engagement and therefore they'll become more effective. And ultimately you will get amazing results like what we're doing. Please do us a favor, like subscribe on YouTube, subscribe on the podcast. Make sure you go to kennychapman.com group and get involved in our leadership, in a nutshell, private Facebook community. Until we talk, my friend. Make it a better than fantastic day and I can't wait to see you soon.