How can you overcome communication challenges in virtual meetings?
Virtual meetings have become a common and essential way of communicating and collaborating in the workplace, especially during the pandemic. However, they also pose some unique challenges that can affect the quality and effectiveness of your interpersonal communication. How can you overcome these challenges and ensure that your virtual meetings are productive, engaging, and respectful? Here are some tips to help you improve your communication skills in virtual meetings.
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Kyle M.Owner at World Linguistics | LinkedIn Expert & Top Voice | 2x California Magazine Appearances on Canvas Rebel and Bold…
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Alyssa GesslemanPMP Certified Project Manager | RN Healthcare Background | Leveraging Data Analytics & Lean Six Sigma: Cross-Functional…
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Brittany RobinsonManager of Product Management at Workday
One of the most important steps to overcome communication challenges in virtual meetings is to prepare in advance. This means setting a clear agenda, sending out relevant materials, choosing the right platform and tools, and testing your equipment and connection. By preparing in advance, you can avoid technical glitches, confusion, and wasted time, and focus on the purpose and goals of the meeting. You can also invite feedback and questions from the participants before the meeting, so that you can address their needs and expectations.
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Agenda-setting is an essential component of maintaining an organized environment where the conversation is coherent and does not fly off track. Agendas don’t have to consist of a long template or many pages, but ideally three or four main themes to be discussed and how many minutes will be budgeted to discuss each topic. Once created, the meeting agenda can be disseminated to relevant colleagues via internal communication channels.
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1st, establish meeting etiquette and ensure everyone understands the expectations. This includes encouraging participants to mute their microphones when not speaking, using the "raise hand" feature to indicate a desire to speak, and minimizing background noise and distractions. 2nd, enhance visual communication. Encourage participants to use their webcams. Facial expressions and body language helps to convey meaning. 3rd, involve all meeting participants to maintain engagement. Encourage questions, discussions, and solicitation of input from all attendees. Use the chat feature to allow participants to ask questions or provide comments.
Another way to overcome communication challenges in virtual meetings is to establish some ground rules for the participants. These can include expectations for attendance, participation, etiquette, and feedback. For example, you can ask everyone to mute their microphones when not speaking, to use the chat or raise hand feature to ask questions, to avoid distractions and multitasking, and to respect each other's opinions and perspectives. By establishing ground rules, you can create a positive and professional atmosphere, and prevent misunderstandings and conflicts.
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It is also important to have a clear plan of who leads on which agenda items. In my experience it is good to be two people for leading the meeting, as one may share slides and the other can engage with participants. Other contributers should ideally be briefed about the length of their slot and which type of engagement they expect (e.g information sharing, consultation, discussion etc.)
One of the communication challenges in virtual meetings is the lack of nonverbal cues, such as facial expressions, body language, and eye contact. These cues can help you convey your emotions, intentions, and interest, and also help you interpret the messages of others. To overcome this challenge, you can use visual aids and gestures to enhance your verbal communication. For example, you can use slides, graphs, images, or videos to illustrate your points, and use gestures, such as nodding, smiling, or waving, to show your engagement and appreciation.
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In my experience back channeling is an essential soft skill for having more connected and productive virtual meetings. Ensuring your colleagues know you’re engaged with them by simple gestures such as smiling or leaning forward can make a world of difference in your professional relationship and interactions.
Another communication challenge in virtual meetings is the lack of interaction and feedback, which can make the meeting boring, passive, and ineffective. To overcome this challenge, you can encourage interaction and feedback from the participants, and make the meeting more dynamic and collaborative. For example, you can ask open-ended questions, use polls or quizzes, invite comments or suggestions, or use breakout rooms or whiteboards to facilitate group work or brainstorming. By encouraging interaction and feedback, you can increase the participation, involvement, and satisfaction of the participants, and also get valuable insights and ideas.
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Another way to increase engagement is to encourage team members to take their meetings outside when feasible, walking while they talk. This can make the meeting feel less formal and promote creative, free-flowing conversation. Not only does it give a refreshing change of scenery, but research also suggests that walking can stimulate creative thinking.
One of the communication challenges in virtual meetings is the difficulty of maintaining attention and interest, especially when the meeting is long or complex. To overcome this challenge, you can be clear and concise in your communication, and avoid unnecessary or irrelevant information. For example, you can use simple and direct language, avoid jargon or acronyms, summarize your main points, and provide examples or stories to illustrate your message. By being clear and concise, you can make your communication easier to understand and remember, and also respect the time and attention of the participants.
The last communication challenge in virtual meetings is the lack of follow up and follow through, which can affect the accountability and outcomes of the meeting. To overcome this challenge, you can follow up and follow through on the actions and decisions that were made during the meeting. For example, you can send a summary or a recording of the meeting, thank the participants for their contributions, provide feedback or recognition, assign tasks or responsibilities, and set deadlines or milestones. By following up and follow through, you can ensure that the meeting was not just a talk, but a meaningful and productive communication.
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Following through is critical to building trust and credibility with your cross-functional stakeholders. Agreeing on action items, deliverables, and next steps to clarify unknowns allows you to align on expectations and set yourself apart as an accountable owner. Your ability to communicate and follow through is what sets you apart as a leader, regardless of title.
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Virtual meetings should not be more than an hour as attention span of attendees can easily fade beyond this amount of time. If including multiple speakers, ensure each has a set time to communicate their topic as to not drag the meeting time. Speakers should be aware of this to share their materials conscisly.
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To overcome, and ultimately avoid, virtual communication challenges, the moderator must be organized, planning ahead of time with an agenda and providing any questions that may be asked, such as during panel discussions. I attended a meeting of this nature recently as a panelist, and it was seamless due to the amount of preparation involved, including prior group communication between the moderator and all panelists.
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Don’t talk over people It’s very common to face situations where multiple members speak over at the same time, resulting in chaos and loss of time It’s good to write down your thoughts and wait for the speaker to end before you put forward your point. Also you can raise your hand and let the moderator allow to unmute and speak.
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