As we are constantly acclimatizing with the pandemic enforced virtual remote teams, I have been on a number of personal and professional meetings on many virtual collaboration platforms. I am sure we have all heard, "You are muted," "I am muting you!" "We can't hear you!" And, we have also had too many people in a meeting where we have the same people logged in on phone and on the collaboration platform, participants that we don't know who they are because they have not named themselves and people technically (on the platform) present but absent in the meeting to contribute (physically in the kitchen brewing coffee). Moreover, we have seen people speaking over each other or distracting others answering personal calls with everyone listening!
Yes, I used to say 'meeting etiquette' to address these issues but in light of some of these continued observations, I feel that attendance in a meeting itself is a contract. It is an agreement that we owe to professionally hold ourselves accountable to others. So, what could these working agreement look like? Here are my thoughts on such a contract holding a professionally beneficial and productive meetings.
- Avoid meetings with too many people
- Large meetings waste valuable time and energy. Discussions may involve more time which many don't have to contribute effectively. Recall there is a cost to meeting (Rajagopalan, 2014). When controversial topics or alternatives require provocative thinking, people become defensive than open when communicating online with many watching. So, do not schedule large meetings unless we are certain that it provides value to everyone in attendance.
- Do not invite people to meetings or decline meetings if there is no contribution required
- When inviting people to a meeting (whether one directly invites or whether the meeting is forwarded to others), we should ask if that participant will have any input to the agenda (or action items that may emanate from the discussions) and add more value based on subject matter expertise or decision-making authority. If neither input, value, or decision-authority are part of their responsibility in a meeting, we should neither invite, nor forward or accept meetings. Instead, it is better to decline such meetings when one is not contributing.
- It is better to mention why one will not attend the meeting rather than attend the meeting and waste their own and others' time without any contribution.
- Revisit other channels of communication
- Collaborate with colleagues directly rather than schedule meeting with the supervisors or manage. Such collaborations build the team camaraderie and the much required relationship for team cohesion enabling faster team member level decisions.
- Use emails or chats to follow through on meeting action items.
- Be respectful of manager's time. It is better not to (blind) copy them on all communications flooding their inbox rather than consolidate your updates in one email to the manager.
- I use subject line prefixes like the following in my communications with the Chief Operations Officer (COO) when I had to be very careful with how much and what I communicate. I set these expectations with my manager and it was very helpful.
- NNTO - No Need To Open (Subject line itself has the message)
- FYI Only - For Your Information only
- RR - Response Required (Not urgent but need some response by the end of the week)
- AR - Action Required (Urgent response required before end of the day)
- Communicate expectations before the next meeting
- It is important to have people own their action items. Have members summarize what they will do before we plan to meet next or before they may be impeding others work.
- It is important to be clear rather than always be clever.
- Avoid frequent and recurring meetings
- If subsequent meetings are not required, cancel them.
- Don't schedule meetings to follow through on action items (everyone is a professional for us to micromanage).
- Hold 'office hours' type of meeting where people can drop in and have their questions answered.
- Do not interrupt people's workflow by requiring them to attend unnecessary recurrent meetings unless they add value (like a 30-60-90 day meeting, etc.)
