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BONUS FREEBIE: Want even more ways to stay organized, productive and less stressed? Click here to get access to my List-Making Starter Kit. It will boost your efficiency and get you back to doing more of the things you love.
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Hybrid work is here to stay. And guess what? That means some Of your co-workers will be in the office for meetings and others will be, well…anywhere!
So knowing how to make a hybrid-meeting engaging is vital.
I spoke with top-rated virtual keynote speaker, head of editorial at Prezi, and LinkedIn Learning instructor, Lorraine Lee to get her top tips for being a hybrid-meeting expert.
Here are five highlights from our conversation.
1) Do more than the bare minimum.
Video fatigue is real and by this point in the pandemic we’ve all experienced it. And it’s hard to combat it. I’ve spoken before about how to schedule so you don’t overload your schedule with video calls and meetings to avoid this phenomenon.
But fatigue might stem from hybrid-meetings feeling like the same old thing. “You hop on video and you talk and there’s not really a lot of focus, and that’s that, and that’s why people are getting video fatigue or Zoom fatigue,” she added.
She suggests trying to incorporate slides and other tools, like Slido, Figma, and Prezi, to keep hybrid meetings engaging for all participants. (For more tool suggestions, check out our entire conversation here.) “Prezi has a feature called Onscreen Responses, where you can add texts, gifs, and stickers onto the screen in real time during your meetings to add a little bit more fun to meetings,” Lorraine explained.
2) Send prep materials ahead of time.
Of course, fun interactive additions to the meeting keep participants awake, but necessarily on-task. To set yourself up for success during a meeting, you need to prepare for the meeting.
“Anytime a facilitator can send prep materials or just some questions, food for thought ahead of the meeting, it’s going to make your meeting more productive,” Lorraine said.
This allows participants to come into the meeting knowing the goals. “They’ll be able to join the conversation, ready with ideas and to participate,” Lorraine added.
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3) Define how to participate.
You’ve sent out your prep materials. Everyone’s joining the meeting in person and over Zoom. You’ve got your slides and gifs all ready to go. You’re on auto-pilot now, right? Wrong.
Clearly define how to participate at the beginning of every hybrid-meeting.
“Making clear how you want people to participate is going to ensure that everyone can get a fair chance and speak up and feel included at that table,” Lorraine said. Telling people if you want them to raise their hand or use the chat, etc will cut down on people speaking out of turn.
Another great way to lead a hybrid-meeting is to ask the remote participants for their input first. “There’s something called proximity bias,” Lorraine explained, “we’re going to favor the people who are near us.” So it’s your responsibility as a hybrid leader to make sure your remote team has equal opportunity to weigh in.
4) Set specific deadlines.
Procrastination is easy, which makes deadlines essential. My remote team uses tools like Asana to set deadlines for everything we need to get done. Asana makes it easy to set specific deadlines with times and dates, but you can also do this in your hybrid-meeting as action steps come up.
“Be as specific as you can,” Lorraine said. Thursday is good. Thursday 12:00PM Pacific time is better. She also likes to ask her team about deadlines.
“Is this reasonable within your schedule… makes sure things get done and builds trust within a team,” Lorraine added. This way your team knows when to get something done and you know you’re not setting them up for failure by giving them an unrealistic deadline. Creating a positive team atmosphere is key to a leading a high-performing hybrid team.
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5) Learn “Virtual and Hybrid-Meeting Essentials.”
Three of my LinkedIn Learning courses as well as Lorraine’s course “Virtual and Hybrid-Meeting Essentials” are a part of the new Pathfinder Series “Mastering Hybrid Work”.
“My LinkedIn Learning course includes the essentials you need in terms of planning and preparing, how to derive engagement during the actual meeting and then what to do after the meeting’s over,” Lorraine said.
If you’re looking to upgrade your hybrid-meeting for your teams, check out the entire episode of Inside Scoop and start the “Mastering Hybrid Work” pathfinder series which is FREE until April 29th 2022.
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BONUS FREEBIE: Want even more ways to stay organized, productive and less stressed? Click here to get access to my List-Making Starter Kit. It will boost your efficiency and get you back to doing more of the things you love.
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