Many C-suite executives have been forced to adopt video calls as a replacement for face-to-face interaction. Those who treat this development as merely a temporary annoyance risk becoming a casualty of the remote work revolution. Leaders invested in creating high-performance cultures must understand how poor video meeting execution can breed misalignment. In this Q&A, Lindsay Guzowski, Partner at Falcon, discusses best practices for leading through video.
What are the biggest adjustments leaders face in the move to virtual meetings?
The number one rule for working with your team via video is to avoid anything you wouldn’t do in a face-to-face meeting.
If you were all together, you wouldn’t be looking at Twitter or typing out an email while someone else is talking. Technology has gotten us so accustomed to multitasking that it’s very easy to fall into those same habits during a video meeting. That behavior sends a message that’s destructive to team culture, and it’s painfully obvious when it happens.
Preparation for video meetings may have been less extensive at the start of Covid-19 because people assumed they were just a short-term solution. Today, if you’re not at a level where you and your team are entering these meetings just as prepared as you would be in the office, you’ve fallen way behind.
You may need to even overcommunicate between formal meetings because it’s now more difficult for people to gain that “water cooler” knowledge of what’s happening and how things are going between scheduled touchpoints. These encounters are not just for small talk – that quick communication can actually be very important to continued alignment.
In a physical environment, leaders can scan a room and gauge non-verbal cues. How does that translate to video?
If you have more than three people on your video meeting, y...