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This workshop on Mastering Virtual Meetings offered as part of our Future of Work learning program provides employees with an overview of the role they can play in improving the virtual meeting experience, including steps to take prior to the meeting, skills to employ in the meeting and ways to assess virtual meeting invitations.

Virtual meetings can be optimized for effective collaboration, communication and productivity. Leaders are encouraged to explore best practices when planning for meetings and finding ways to enhance the experience for all participants.

Clarify meeting purpose and desired outcomes

Most of the issues pertaining to virtual meeting effectiveness are connected to a lack of preparation prior to the meeting. Your virtual meeting actually begins before the start time of the meeting. In addition to scheduling one to two small blocks of time to prepare for your virtual meeting, consider the following to clarify the meeting鈥檚 purpose and achieve your desired outcomes:

• Conduct pre-meeting check-ins with required participants to ensure alignment and preparation. 
• Identify relevant information, pre-work, pre-reads, etc., that can be sent out before the meeting and would save time during the meeting.
• Determine two to three things you can do to build connection in the meeting.
• Identify solution-focused questions (a list of examples is provided below) that can stimulate a positive, engaging discussion in the meeting.
• Find opportunities to encourage participation in the meeting including early interaction, polls, drawing tools and roundtable discussions.
• Prepare a good agenda (tips below) and send it out with enough advance notice to give participants adequate time to review and prepare.
• Lead by example: 鈥淭wo things that I want to bring into this meeting are鈥︹��

Meeting preparation checklist

Ensure items below that are relevant to your situation are complete before arranging the meeting:

Tips for creating your meeting agenda

In our busy world, there is often pressure to 鈥済et down to business鈥� and to skip 鈥渟mall talk鈥�. There is nothing more important than trust and psychological safety in high performing teams - while you may not feel you have the time to connect, you can鈥檛 afford to not build in time to connect. This time will impact every other aspect of your meeting.

• Be cautious about getting 鈥渓ittle stuff鈥� out of the way first. Place highest priority items first.
• Build in time to connect interpersonally. 
• Allow space in the agenda for impromptu items.
• Circulate the agenda with enough advance notice to give time for participants to properly prepare.
• For recurring meetings, remember to use the minutes of the last meeting as input for upcoming meetings and ensure that follow-up (and accountability) is in place.
  

Helpful questions in the meeting

Tips to help negotiate some incoming meeting invites

• If it鈥檚 at all delicate, avoid email or instant messengers like Google Chat.
• Build trust and psychological safety so that you and your team feel comfortable speaking up and negotiating some meeting time (and other requests).
• Have plans in place. Be able to compare the incoming request to your other priorities and share why you鈥檙e asking questions about the incoming meeting request.
• Don鈥檛 assume that they鈥檝e thought the invite through - propose options.
• Block off buffer time in your calendar like meeting-free time to get other things done.

Helpful language and good questions for negotiating positively

If you have concerns about a meeting invite you receive, the single most effective tip is to call the meeting organizer and ask either one of the questions below:

• 鈥淚 just received your meeting invite. I would love to participate but I鈥檝e got to get _____ done for _____ by _____ so that time鈥檚 going to be difficult. Is there another option that might work?鈥� 
• 鈥淭hat meeting time is going to be really tight (because of x, y, z), could (propose new time) work?鈥�

Other language that can also help:

• 鈥淚f we stay focused, can we do this meeting in 30-45 minutes (instead of the default hour)?鈥�
• 鈥淒o you have an agenda to send me? I want to make sure I鈥檓 prepared (and double-check that I鈥檓 required to be there).鈥�

The 鈥渘ext 10 meeting invites鈥� exercise

If you tend to default to 鈥測es鈥� when receiving meeting invites, and if you鈥檇 like to increase your skill in diplomatically negotiating some meeting invites, try this exercise over the next week or two.