www.fastcompany.com: No matter what industry you’re in, or the size of your business, leading effective meetings is often a difficult task. Most people think that it’s a waste of time, and there are a lot of articles and research backing that up that claim. The challenge is much more significant for virtual meetings, and people know it. So much that it often leads to the all-too-common question: “Do we need to meet?”
2 comments:
I find it so interesting how timely these articles. Just the other day in PRM, we were talking about ineffective most virtual creative meetings are. I think these guidelines are not only very helpful for virtual meetings but for all meetings. I think one of the most upsetting things about meetings that happen in school dealing with change is that there is never any follow up about the process for things that are being done. I understand that some things need to be kept private due to the sensitive nature of the content but a lot of the not sharing is just done because there is a lot non-transparency in this organization of Carnegie Mellon University. I think telling everyone about the progress of a process is an important thing when being a leader not just about meetings but along any project. This is a great motivator that I’m glad this article reminded me of as I am about to embark on another production process. I think the interactive nature of a meeting is important as well in not just virtual meetings. I was just in a meeting today where half the people were on their phones.
Like Alexander mentioned, it is incredibly timely that this article appeared just a few days after discussing ineffective creative team meeting become over video conferencing instead of in-person during Production Resource Management with David Holcomb. Additionally, these tips also come at a time when many of us in the School of Drama are beginning to have phone and video interviews with various organizations for summer internships! One thing that makes virtual meetings more difficult to run and generally less effective is the difficulty in creating engagement. This is especially difficult on voice-only conference calls, where we lose body language and other important factors in communication. As such, Google has some interesting methods in making teleconferencing more effective and useful to organizations and remote workers. I appreciate that they push for engagement and interaction in meetings, as many of the meetings I currently attend are simple status updates that often feel like a waste of time. By ensuring that every voice is heard and every member has a purpose in any given meeting, it makes that time feel far more valuable. Giving people the opportunity to contribute is a great motivator, and I'm sure that introducing that into teleconferencing has the potential to make it a far more useful medium.
Post a Comment