
An empire apple. Apples are an extreme example of what not to eat while engaged in conversation, either in person or by telephone. They require chewing, and chewing can prevent the chewer from speaking when necessary. In telephone conversation, there is the additional problem that both biting and chewing are noisy. The list of noisy foods includes many fruits, nuts, chips, crackers, popcorn, some candies, carbonated drinks, and much more. But noise isn't the only problem. Eating itself is a distracting activity, even without spills and accidents. Photo by Peggy Greb courtesy the U.S. Agricultural Research Service.
Inattention in virtual meetings is a common source of frustration. But that frustration is often unjustified, because many virtual meeting leads have yet to take two necessary steps. The first is to set standards of attentiveness — behavioral norms. Here are some examples of behaviors that reduce meeting effectiveness.
- Eating
- In face-to-face meetings eating does happen, but the costs there are much lower, because communication is more effective in face-to-face meetings than it is in virtual meetings. In virtual meetings, where we might depend solely on electronic channels, and where audio channel quality can be marginal, eating during the meeting can degrade the meeting's effectiveness.
- Electronic activities unrelated to the meeting
- Electronic activities of all kinds — games, gambling, texting, viewing videos, enhancing Facebook pages, listening to music, and dozens more — all compete for attention. They are incompatible with full participation. Still, some electronic activities are actually part of the meeting — viewing a presentation, attending to the conversation, checking one's calendar for compatibility with a proposed meeting. But everything unrelated to the meeting ought to be off limits.
- Conversation with those not attending
- Officemates or passersby sometimes visit attendees who are at work; children, spouses, neighbors, or pets sometimes visit When people want distractions,
they find them. What
can we do about all this?with attendees who are at home. It's tempting for attendees to mute their phones and engage in conversation while the meeting continues. This behavior might be acceptable in emergencies, but in emergencies attendees should just sign off. - Conversation with those attending
- Sidebar conversations are distracting. They occur more often in conference rooms in which everyone in the room is connected to the meeting through a speakerphone or video, but they can also occur over alternative phone or video links, or via text. All sidebars, in whatever medium, degrade meeting effectiveness.
- Rearranging desk drawer contents, sorting, and filing
- Office housekeeping chores might seem to be mindless at first, but they can quickly capture the brain when the housekeeper encounters something that has to be read. That's where inattentiveness sets in.
- Pairing socks
- For those participating from home, actual housekeeping is a temptation. There's nothing special about pairing socks; any distracting household chore can be corrosive.
When people want distractions, they find them. What can we do about all this?
Seeking cooperation is the second too-often-omitted step for increasing attentiveness. Ask attendees to develop and agree to attentiveness norms. And it helps to appoint a timekeeper, a parking lot valet, a designated digression detector, and a queue manager, because people who accept these responsibilities are compelled to be more attentive.
In exchange, offer five-minute breaks every 20 minutes. This concedes nothing, because attendees will take breaks or self-distract with or without permission. As a virtual meeting lead, you can't choose to skip breaks. You can only choose when they happen, and whether everyone breaks at the same time.
That's all I have for now. Time to go pair my socks. Top
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Related articles
More articles on Effective Meetings:
Mastering Meeting Madness
- If you lead an organization, and people are mired in meeting madness, you can end it. Here are a few
tips that can free everyone to finally get some work done.
Remote Facilitation in Synchronous Contexts: II
- Facilitators of synchronous distributed meetings — meetings that occur in real time, via telephone
or video — encounter problems that facilitators of face-to-face meetings do not. Here's Part II
of a little catalog of those problems, and some suggestions for addressing them.
Toward More Engaging Virtual Meetings: I
- Keeping attendees engaged in virtual meetings is a widely sought but rarely achieved objective. Here
is Part I of a set of simple techniques to help facilitators enhance attendee engagement.
Issues-Only Team Meetings
- Time spent in regular meetings is productive to the extent that it moves the team closer to its objectives.
Because uncovering and clarifying issues is more productive than distributing information or listening
to status reports, issues-only team meetings focus energy where it will help most.
Guidelines for Curmudgeon Teams
- The curmudgeon team is a subgroup of a larger team. Their job is to strengthen the team's conclusions
and results by raising thorny issues that cause the team to reconsider the path it's about to take.
In this way they help the team avoid dead ends and disasters.
See also Effective Meetings and Effective Communication at Work for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming February 1: The Big Power of Little Words
- Big, fancy words, like commensurate or obfuscation, tend to be more noticed than the little everyday words, like yet or best. That might be why the little words can be so much more powerful, steering conversations where their users want them to go. Available here and by RSS on February 1.
And on February 8: Kerfuffles That Seem Like Something More
- Much of what we regard as political conflict is a series of squabbles commonly called kerfuffles. They captivate us while they're underway, but after a month or two they're forgotten. Why do they happen? Why do they persist? Available here and by RSS on February 8.
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