Favor Symmetric Virtual Meetings

When we conduct synchronous (live) virtual meetings, we use technologies like speakerphones, bridge lines, desktop cameras, and videoconference rooms. We enhance immediacy by transmitting voices or video to all attendees. But technology isn't free, and it's far short of real life. To compromise, we sometimes gather in small clusters, and connect the clusters together. For example, three people at one site might connect via one camera or speakerphone to small groups at other sites seated in front of similar cameras or speakerphones. Or four people gather around a speakerphone, while a fifth calls in from a distant site.

Such geometries are asymmetric — attendees have unequal access to the shared environment. Symmetric geometries, such as bridge lines or at-your-desk video equipment, grant to all attendees (except perhaps the chair or facilitator) equal access to the shared environment.

Equal Access to the Shared Environment (EASE) offers advantages over Unequal Access to the Shared Environment (UNEASE). Some examples:

Technological uniformity

In EASE meetings, because all participants have equal access, we need to distribute only one set of connection instructions to attendees. This simplifies the instructions, testing, and tech support. Moreover, in UNEASE meetings, variability in connection quality between the attendee and the shared environment can place some people at a disadvantage, if they're more difficult to understand or if their connections break frequently. In EASE meetings, any nonuniformity of the individual connections is due to the attendee's method of connecting to the shared environment, rather than to the way the shared environment provides connection service.

Self-facilitation for small meetings

EASE Equal Access to the Shared
Environment (EASE) offers
advantages over Unequal
Access to the Shared
Environment (UNEASE)makes small meetings more like ordinary conversations. Attendees often self-facilitate. Small EASE meetings are less formal, ideas flow more freely, and people get more done with less frustration.

Easier facilitation for larger meetings

Facilitating a large UNEASE meeting is, um, not easy. Special skills and attention are required (see "Remote Facilitation in Synchronous Contexts: I," Point Lookout for March 26, 2008). By contrast, facilitating an EASE meeting is much more straightforward, because it's more like facilitating a face-to-face meeting.

Simpler conflict management

Managing conflict entails either keeping constructive conflict constructive or making destructive conflict less destructive, or sometimes both. It's never simple. In EASE meetings, conflict management is simpler than in UNEASE meetings, because of reduced complications arising from the misunderstandings, frustrations, and misrepresentations that are associated with unequal access to the shared environment.

More balance in contributions

In any meeting, some individuals might dominate the give-and-take. Dominance by a few is more likely in UNEASE meetings, because some people have better access to the "virtual floor." If those people happen to be among those who tend to dominate any meeting, controlling them is especially difficult. In EASE meetings, where everyone has equal capability to gain the virtual floor, controlling the dominators is no more difficult than it would be in face-to-face meetings.

These are just a few of the advantages of EASE relative to UNEASE meetings. How many more can you find?  Top    Next Issue

Is your organization a participant in one or more global teams? Are you the owner/sponsor of a global team? Are you managing a global team? Is everything going well, or at least as well as any project goes? Probably not. Many of the troubles people encounter are traceable to the obstacles global teams face when building working professional relationships from afar. Read 303 Tips for Virtual and Global Teams to learn how to make your global and distributed teams sing. Order Now!

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Effective Meetings:

Remote Facilitation in Synchronous Contexts: III

Facilitators of synchronous distributed meetings (meetings that occur in real time, via telephone or video) can make life much easier for everyone by taking steps before the meeting starts. Here's Part III of a little catalog of suggestions for remote facilitators.

A Pain Scale for Meetings

Most meetings could be shorter, less frequent, and more productive than they are. Part of the problem is that we don't realize how much we do to get in our own way. If we track the incidents of dysfunctional activity, we can use the data to spot trends and take corrective action.

Pre-Decision Discussions: Facts

The purpose of some meetings is reaching decisions. Because decision making can be difficult, familiarity with the forms of contributions that can occur in such discussions is helpful. Their connection to facts is critical.

Formulaic Utterances: I

With all due respect is an example of a category of linguistic forms known as formulaic utterances. They differ across languages and cultures, but I speculate that their functions are near universal. In the workplace, using them can be constructive — or not.

Formulaic Utterances: II

Formulaic utterances are things we say that follow a pre-formed template. They're familiar to all, and have standard uses. "For example" is an example. In the workplace, some of them can be useful for establishing or maintaining dominance and credibility.

See also Effective Meetings and Virtual and Global Teams for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming October 4: Self-Importance and Conversational Narcissism at Work: I

Conversational narcissism is a set of behaviors that participants use to focus the exchange on their own self-interest rather than the shared objective. This post emphasizes the role of these behaviors in advancing a narcissist's sense of self-importance. Available here and by RSS on October 4.

And on October 11: Self-Importance and Conversational Narcissism at Work: II

Self-importance is one of four major themes of conversational narcissism. Knowing how to recognize the patterns of conversational narcissism is a fundamental skill needed for controlling it. Here are eight examples that emphasize self-importance. Available here and by RSS on October 11.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenogMhuqCxAnbfLvzbner@ChacigAthhhYwzZDgxshoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info