MBA1903 Guest Teacher – Lauren Sergy – How to Create High Value Virtual Meetings While Kicking Zoom Fatigue to the Curb

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Guest teacher, Lauren Sergi is a public speaking and interpersonal communications expert. She's helped thousands of people become powerful communicators. She's worked with clients and audiences from KPMG to T Mobile, and she teaches at the University of Alberta. And she's released a killer book called Unmute how to Master Virtual Meetings and Reclaim youm Sanity. And guess what? She's here today to teach you how to run better meetings online. I'm gonna pass it on to Lauren, but I'll be back to wrap up today's episode and give my takeaways. But for now, take it away, Lauren.

Hello everyone, I'm Lauren Sergi and I'm excited to dive into a topic near and dear to my heart. And maybe near and dear to yours too. How to create high value virtual meeting while kicking your zoom fatigue to the curb. If we're to be honest, it's hard enough to have a good in person meeting. All of those memes and jokes about terrible meetings exist for a reason. But virtual meetings have an extra layer of complication. In a virtual environment, important signals like body language and eye contact don't work as they normally do, making it more difficult to interact and creating a sense of boredom and disconnect. Technological complications like micro delays lead to halting conversations that drive us up the wall. Then there's the fact that we're working in a distraction heavy environment, often toggling between multiple screens and applications while trying to actively ignore those 500 tabs we have open. All these not so little things. The non verbals, the tech, the distractions, they all pile into our brains, forcing it to work a lot harder than it has to when we're meeting in person. This is a cognitively heavy way to communicate. When you add on to this the fact that most of us are sitting in many boring, ineffective virtual meetings day after day and getting very frustrated with them, you have a recipe for virtual meeting burnout. Virtual meetings don't have to be boring and exhausting. Most people expect virtual meetings and presentations to be dull or inefficient. So when you hold a meeting that's productive and engaging, you stand out and show a higher level of leadership and competence. You also help everyone, including yourself, dial back that ever present Virtual meeting burnout this is a big topic, so today I've narrowed it down to my three favorite strategies for creating high value virtual meetings while kicking some of that zoom fatigue to the curb. And here's a bonus. Most of these strategies can make your in person meetings better as well. So let's dig in. Actively facilitate the conversation Efficient conversations lead to more production, productive meetings and better outcomes. But much of our ability to have smooth conversations depends on nonverbal signals, and those just don't work properly. In virtual platforms, there's no significant looks or extending your hand at the person you want to speak next. This, coupled with the invariable audio lags and wandering attentiveness, can result in long, frustrating pauses and then everyone piling into the conversation at once, talking over one another. Or on the flip side, no one contributes and one or two people end up having to do all the talking. Make it your practice to always call on people by name whenever you want someone to respond or to speak up. Without eye contact, we must verbally cue the other people in the meeting who we think should speak next. I call this passing the baton. Everyone in the meeting can be involved in passing the baton to someone else, not just the meeting leader. You could say something like that's our current status. John, you've been working directly with the head of procurement. Have you heard anything new that I haven't covered here? John can then pick up the baton and say yes and add his information. Or if he doesn't have anything to contribute, he could pass it back to me or to someone else. I haven't heard anything, but I know that Sarah recently had a call with the client's VP of Procurement. Sarah, did anything we should know about come up during that call? Now Sarah has the baton. The floor has been open to her, and she can speak or pass it on as she sees fit. This kind of deliberate name cueing can feel a bit tiresome at first, but if there's more than a handful of people in your virtual meeting, it's important for ensuring the meeting conversation is clear and flows nicely. I strongly recommend that your work teams establish a standard of etiquette regarding how people are going to signal that they want to speak in virtual meetings so that the meeting leader can pass the baton to them. If you can see everyone in the meeting on a single virtual meeting screen, this usually means that you have meetings of 10 or fewer people and everyone has their camera on. I find that the most effective signal is to have people physically raise their hands. It's the easiest thing to see and pick up on, otherwise agree amongst everyone on some other signal such as typing I'd like to speak in the chat box or using the raise hand feature and make sure that the meeting leader or whoever is helping them out keeps their eye out for those signals so that they can see when someone wants to speak and pass the baton to them. I want you to come to your meetings with lots of specific questions that you can ask certain people at the ready in your back pocket. Asking questions is a brilliant way to foster conversation and is an excellent strategy for getting those wallflowers who never really say a word to open up and contribute to the meeting. If the question is specific, it makes it easier for people to respond to it to think of something good to say. Remember, figuring out who should speak in a virtual environment is really hard work thanks to the lack. Useful nonverbal cues and fatigue combined with a feeling of disconnect makes it much more likely that people in virtual meetings will be reluctant to speak up or will start talking over one another, fostering conversations using the strategies we just covered. Passing the baton and asking directed questions encourages people to speak by making it easy for them to take the floor, by giving them something specific to respond to, and by showing that they are extended expected to take part. Do this and the virtual meeting conversations will be much easier, much less irksome, and far more productive. Strategy 2 mug for the Webcam Nonverbal expression plays an extremely important role in how we engage with a topic, how we interpret someone's meaning, and how we connect with the people that we're talking to. Alas, as we said, nonverbal communication doesn't work the same way in virtual as it does in person. This is where learning how to mug for the webcam comes in. You want to use nonverbal communication in a way that works well on camera as a deliberate tactic for communicating how interested you are in something, what you may be feeling about a topic, how much attention you're paying to what's going on to Other people, and so on. This will make it easier for people to pay attention. Frankly, you'll be more interesting to listen to and people will pick up on your own attention and enthusiasm. And crucially, it also boosts clarity, understanding, and sense of connection, all of which result in higher value meetings. Let's start with gesture. Gesture is a great way to show energy and emphasis when you're speaking, unless you are a very emphatic person who normally loves waving your hands right up around your head. Most of our gestures fall somewhere between our belly button and mid chest. So for most people, this is lower than the webcam frame. This lack of visual gesture can make you look flat and disengaged. You're not moving around, you're not showing any energy, and this encourages others to become flat and disengaged as well. To fix this, I want you to sit a little further away from your camera than you usually do. Not so far back that it looks like you're yelling at people from down a hallway, but far enough away so that the bottom of the camera frame is somewhere around your solar plexus or mid chest. Then make the effort to bring your gestures up higher so that most of them take place between mid chest and your shoulder or jawline instead of low down by your nave. You don't need to have your hands waving up around your head the whole time. It would look a little weird, but bringing them up now and then will add significant emphasis and energy to your communication. And this makes it easier for people to pay attention and to clearly understand your intent and energy behind your words. Next, let's talk about a really big issue. Eye contact. Namely, the act of purposefully looking directly at your camera lens so that the person on the other side of your camera feels like you are looking directly at them. For maximum engagement and presence in video conference, you want to look straight into your webcam aperture. This helps engage people by making them feel like you're speaking directly to them, Even if there's 20 other people in this meeting all visible on the screen at once. Now, logically we may know that, yeah, that other person is looking into the webcam, not soulfully into my eyes. But the caveman part of our brains responds very, very strongly to this kind of fake eye contact. It's actually an instinct that's hard to override. Our brain stems basically say, hey, she's looking at me. I'd better pay attention. Eye contact has a second, very strategic purpose to signal that you are paying attention to what other people are saying. There is definitely cultural variation in this kind of eye contact etiquette. But for most quote unquote Western business cultures, it's a very important cue. So use it strategically. Look into that camera lens when you get the sense that someone really wants to be heard, when you want to signal to them that you're paying attention, that you are valuing their time, and that you are drinking in every word that they're saying. Now, a quick note on eye contact. You don't need to and shouldn't stare directly into the webcam or all the time. That would be weird and a little intense. It's not normal behavior when we're in person either. But then when you want to make a point, or when you're going to be speaking for more than a few seconds, or when you want to deliberately signal that you're paying attention to someone else, get your eyeballs right back up onto that webcam lens. Implement Transition Times Back in the mostly in person days, going for a meeting often involved a change of space. Even if we were bouncing from one meeting to another with no breaks in between, having to physically get up and change location helped us mentally close the books on what we were doing and start gearing up for the meeting to come. When joining a meeting involves nothing more than clicking a mouse, we're much more likely to jump from meeting to meeting without ever giving ourselves time to mentally transition between these two encounters. This leaves us feeling off kilter and seriously jacks up our stress levels. The lack of physical movement is also a problem. We stay planted in our seats, inertia contributing to our flagging energy. Scheduling in deliberate transition time after each meeting can help to prevent mental and physical fog from settling in. In organizations where hour long meetings are the default, many people schedule 45 or 50 minute meetings to create that time gap. Unfortunately, many of us, myself included, also have a very bad habit of allowing our meetings to run long. We think to ourselves, oh, it's okay, we don't have to close down the conversation yet. I've got a couple of extra minutes, then you blink and that 10 minute buffer is gone. I found, however, that big 30 minute transitions work better. I know this sounds a bit aggressive or even impossible with your current schedule, but stick with me. A 30 minute transition period appears as a tidy block on our calendars, which ensures that the meetings don't visually run into each other when we look at our schedule. 30 minutes still allows for a little bit of a buffer in case your meeting runs a bit longer than expected, while still giving you time to stretch your legs, get a glass of water, maybe even go to the bathroom. What a luxury. It bumps up the productivity and effectiveness of the previous virtual meeting by giving you time for quick post meeting tasks like follow up emails or invites. It also gives you a few minutes to gather up your documents and review the agenda for your next meeting, which helps you get your thoughts and orders so that you can hit the ground running. Generous transition time also leaves you with less time in your day for virtual meetings. Most of us know we should be having fewer meetings anyway, and the reduced time in your calendar forces you to be choosier about how many meetings you call or accept. Some organizations I've worked with have implemented transition times at the organizational level. They are something that everybody engages with and this makes it easier for people to justify turning down meetings because they run too closely together. Adhering to your transition times can take a great deal of self discipline. You're going to want to sneak in the extra zoom call here and there or be accommodating and flexible for that prospective client instead of simply suggesting a different meeting time that still gives you that 30 minute break. Stay strong my friend. Your energy levels, attention span and overall virtual meeting productivity and effectiveness will thank you for it. Before I sign off, let's quickly recap what we just learned about how to dial up the value of your virtual meetings, making them more effective and productive while pulling back on the stress. Number one Facilitate the conversation Help people speak up more comfortably by saying the name of the person who should speak next. Pass the baton. Encourage conversations by asking people specific questions so that it's easier for them to take the floor and to provide meaningful contributions to the topic at hand. 2. Mug for the Webcam Nonverbal signals like gestures and eye contact play an extremely important role in communication and you have to make up for the lack of them when you're in a virtual meeting environment. Make sure people can see you gesture more easily by sitting slightly further away from your webcam so they can see the upper part of your torso and bringing your gestures up slightly higher around your shoulder level instead of having them around your belly button. Also, be sure that you use eye contact properly. This means looking straight into the webcam aperture. Even though you are not looking at the person's face, it's going to come across to the person on the other side of the camera that you're looking directly at them and this will help to improve the sense of connection between the two of you. Number three use big 30 minute transition times in between your meetings, giving yourself 30 minutes in between the meetings gives you time to tie up loose ends from your previous meeting. Get ready for the next one, and get up and away from your computer for a short re energizing break. All right, everyone, this was Lauren Sergey. If you'd like more insights and advice on how to become a virtual meeting master and have a good laugh while you're at it, be sure to check out my new book, how to Master Virtual Meetings and Reclaim youm Sanity. You can learn more@unmutebook.com or get your copy at your favorite online bookseller. Thanks so much for joining me today. Back to you, Omar. You're juggling a lot, but you can still squeeze in a financial plan with the Northwestern Mutual Financial Advisor as your partner. It's not only possible, it's personalized. So if you're tying the knot, closing on a house, or welcoming a little one, you'll be ready for whatever life tosses your way. It's the right time to feel less stressed and and more certain. That's a better way to money. Let's get started@nm.com the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Great lesson by Lauren Sergey. Make sure you implement the three big tips she shared with you today. Facilitate the conversation. You gotta be in charge of making sure that your conversations are organized. Take the lead or delegate that have somebody on your team. It could be somebody new. Every single time you run a meeting mug for the webcam. I am a big believer in this. Make sure that when you're talking, you look directly into the lens. This creates a connection with your audience, with your other colleagues or clients or whoever you're in the meeting with. I try to be expressive as possible in meetings as well. I like to change it up and keep it light and throw in some humor if I can. And number three, use transition times. This is a big one. I am guilty of not doing this and I should be doing this more often. I'm now going to be implementing this and making sure I don't book meetings back to back on my calendar to have at least 30 minutes in between to just kind of absorb what just happened. Write down some notes, maybe some action items, recap. Maybe to take a breather, have a cup of water and then go at it again to the next meeting. This is a really good piece of advice because I tend to block book all my meetings in one day. That'll be my meeting day. I like having themed days where I just focus on one kind of task one after another and I'm going to share with you one tip that I have found has been really, really helpful when it comes to your meetings within your team. Whether department meetings or maybe there are meetings with one other person every single week, or all hands, the whole staff have an agenda. Put an agenda together beforehand so people can know what to expect, so they can read the agenda and literally could just be a bunch of bullet points. But the point here is that I like having an agenda so that it's a structured meeting, we cover all the important things and it keeps us honest. And I actually build on our department agendas or department meeting agendas throughout the week. As I think of something, I say, oh, I'm going to add that to the meeting so I don't forget to discuss it. It's important. And then before the meeting I'll just clean it up a little bit just so it is not just a bunch of notes. It's easy to follow come the meeting. I like to post this publicly so other people can comment or maybe add to the agenda or maybe they can solve one of the agenda items offline so we don't have to take meeting time for that. Maybe it's a question, maybe it's an insight. This has helped me and my team save a lot of time and just stay on point during meetings. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. If you loved today's lesson. If you loved Lauren Sergey's great advice, you're gonna love her book. It's called Unmute how to Master Virtual Meetings and Reclaim youm Sanity. You can get it@unmutebook.com that wraps up today's lesson. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 NBA show. If you love what you hear, leave us an Apple Podcast rating and review. We'd love it to hear what you think of the show. Read every single review. If the show has helped you in any way, we'd love to hear about it and go ahead and share the show with your friends and family on social. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. I'm a big believer in trying to improve in tasks or things you do on a regular basis. Meetings are one of them. If you can make a 1% increase, just a slight increase in performance, you do just get better at it in some way. It's going to impact your business and your team in a big way because it's something you regularly do. It impacts a lot of people. So think about the things you normally do every single day in your business. What kind of skills are required to implement that actual task or those actual duties. What can you do to improve those skills so that you can and improve your whole business? To me, that is a great investment of time and energy. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care. Of.

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