Lorraine K. LeeFounder & CEO at RISE Learning Solutions

Tip of the Day: State Changes

6 Aug 2022 · 1 min

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1:03

In this short video, Lorraine K. Lee explains how to keep an audience’s attention during meetings—especially virtual ones—by deliberately introducing "state changes" in the flow of the session. She clarifies that these state changes are not scientific phenomena but purposeful shifts in activity, such as inserting polls, playing video clips, prompting written questions, or rotating speakers. The goal is to prevent the brain’s habituation to a single speaker, which can cause boredom. Lee offers concrete, actionable ideas for incorporating these techniques and ends with a call to join her newsletter for more virtual‑office skill tips.

Chapters

Today's tip of the day is about keeping your audience's attention. And we're going to do that with state changes. Now, state changes in this case aren't what you might be thinking of from science class. What they are, however, is changing the state of what you're doing. If you're in a meeting and you realize that it's you doing a lot of the talking, we need to break that up because our brains get used to things very quickly, which leads to boredom. And that's what your audience is going to experience if we're not including state changes. So here are a few ideas that you can include. Try incorporating polls into your meetings. Perhaps you show a video clip. Or you can ask your team to write down a question or an idea. You might even just want to pass the baton and ask different people to speak so it's not just you. For more quick, actionable tips on skills you need to thrive in the virtual office in 2022, I'd love it if you would join my newsletter at lorraineklee.com/learn.