All these years, we have been conditioned to having real and physical meetings for business. It has been the main way to close deals and conduct business in the real world. Even with advanced telephony, email and messaging applications, people have continued to travel extensively for work so that they can conduct business over face-to-face meetings. It seemed that in order to build a business relationship, one needed to give and receive physical, psychological and emotional sensory inputs.
Sitting face to face across a table or being in the same room has long been considered essential. It gives us a chance to communicate clearly, read each other’s body language, and be able to judge the emotional quality of our responses to each other. In real meetings we are constantly assessing the level of engagement we have managed to create and we get instant feedback on the effectiveness of our ongoing interaction.
It becomes important to know if the person is paying attention to your discussion, or are they distracted, playing on the phone chat, checking their messages or even dozing off. Do they look well today, are they happy, sad or angry, all these have an effect on the way the meeting is conducted. Even looks and appearances, or the lack of it matter. All this can mean the very difference between success and failure in the achieving the objectives of a business meeting.
Nowadays, Video calls are a part of our daily work and are not being made by choice. We are doing it because it’s not feasible to meet face to face due to the current restrictions of containing a pandemic. We are therefore trying hard to replicate the effectiveness of face to face meetings that we are so used to in the past.
A video call, when done correctly, could be as close as possible to a real meeting. Therefore, it becomes so much more important that we use the camera function. We are given tools to switch on and off our video camera and microphone, set an appropriate profile photo, share our screen, send data files and such kinds of interaction tools, all designed by the best minds in the industry to give the closest interaction experience of a real meeting. Only serving coffee and snacks is missing. And of course, shaking hands and high fives.
I have noticed in video calls nowadays, many people choose to switch off their video camera. Some don’t even bother to put a profile photo or put a name to their profile. Now, there may be valid reasons to do so, such as being in a room full of family members, or not having sufficient internet bandwidth or perhaps your device has a malfunction. But its mostly lack of preparation or seriousness to get the best out of the meeting. It’s quite expected to switch off an image of you in a webinar where you are only listening and not talking, but if you are an active participant in a discussion, it’s important to understand the importance of skills required in real meetings.
Why do we think it is quite alright to not stay visibly engaged with our superior, peers or subordinates, let alone our clients and partners. How come we start to believe that a voice interaction is going to be acceptable? In a world of life-changing technology, why do we willingly regress back to the voice call technology of 30 years ago?
These are the questions we must ask ourselves as we get ready to adapt to a new normal, because, let’s face it, “things are not going back to the good old days when all of this is over.”
We need to get used to the reality that digital tools can and will give us a near-real experience which allows us to instantly assess the effectiveness of our digital interactions as we conduct business meetings. Let’s embrace technology and become players, not spectators.
Otherwise, the solution is simple, I would go ahead and do what I would do in real life meetings, ignore the people who are not paying attention, or surprise them with questions and let them know that it is clearly not OK to show a lack of decorum in the digital world, which otherwise, one would care deeply about in the real world.
- Sachin V Gopalan
Futurist Thinker & Social Impact Champion
Sitting face to face across a table or being in the same room has long been considered essential. It gives us a chance to communicate clearly, read each other’s body language, and be able to judge the emotional quality of our responses to each other. In real meetings we are constantly assessing the level of engagement we have managed to create and we get instant feedback on the effectiveness of our ongoing interaction.
It becomes important to know if the person is paying attention to your discussion, or are they distracted, playing on the phone chat, checking their messages or even dozing off. Do they look well today, are they happy, sad or angry, all these have an effect on the way the meeting is conducted. Even looks and appearances, or the lack of it matter. All this can mean the very difference between success and failure in the achieving the objectives of a business meeting.
Nowadays, Video calls are a part of our daily work and are not being made by choice. We are doing it because it’s not feasible to meet face to face due to the current restrictions of containing a pandemic. We are therefore trying hard to replicate the effectiveness of face to face meetings that we are so used to in the past.
A video call, when done correctly, could be as close as possible to a real meeting. Therefore, it becomes so much more important that we use the camera function. We are given tools to switch on and off our video camera and microphone, set an appropriate profile photo, share our screen, send data files and such kinds of interaction tools, all designed by the best minds in the industry to give the closest interaction experience of a real meeting. Only serving coffee and snacks is missing. And of course, shaking hands and high fives.
I have noticed in video calls nowadays, many people choose to switch off their video camera. Some don’t even bother to put a profile photo or put a name to their profile. Now, there may be valid reasons to do so, such as being in a room full of family members, or not having sufficient internet bandwidth or perhaps your device has a malfunction. But its mostly lack of preparation or seriousness to get the best out of the meeting. It’s quite expected to switch off an image of you in a webinar where you are only listening and not talking, but if you are an active participant in a discussion, it’s important to understand the importance of skills required in real meetings.
Why do we think it is quite alright to not stay visibly engaged with our superior, peers or subordinates, let alone our clients and partners. How come we start to believe that a voice interaction is going to be acceptable? In a world of life-changing technology, why do we willingly regress back to the voice call technology of 30 years ago?
These are the questions we must ask ourselves as we get ready to adapt to a new normal, because, let’s face it, “things are not going back to the good old days when all of this is over.”
We need to get used to the reality that digital tools can and will give us a near-real experience which allows us to instantly assess the effectiveness of our digital interactions as we conduct business meetings. Let’s embrace technology and become players, not spectators.
Otherwise, the solution is simple, I would go ahead and do what I would do in real life meetings, ignore the people who are not paying attention, or surprise them with questions and let them know that it is clearly not OK to show a lack of decorum in the digital world, which otherwise, one would care deeply about in the real world.
- Sachin V Gopalan
Futurist Thinker & Social Impact Champion
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