You can easily listen in while ticking off a whole host of items on your to‐do list at the same time. Unfortunately, as much as we want to believe that we are master multitaskers, research indicates that this does not line up with reality. Our productivity suffers, as do the outcomes of our meetings.
If your virtual meeting involves everyone turning their webcams on, the lens holds people accountable. It sees everything, and as much as you try to hide checking out that incoming text or your surreptitious search for a birthday gift for your Aunt Alice, your coworkers can see that you are not giving the meeting your undivided attention. Expect to be called out.
The benefits of having the webcam on were witnessed by Srini Koushik, Chief Technology Officer of Magellan Health, who was quoted in the 2017 Forbes Insights report, The Connected Culture: “Once video engages during a call, the entire feel and etiquette of the meeting changes. Participants are less apt to ‘zone out.’ The result is a superior level of closeness and engagement” (Forbes Insights 2017).
From a meeting science perspective, most of the multitasking behaviors just mentioned would be labeled counterproductive meeting behaviors or counterproductive use of technology in meetings (Allen, Yoerger, and Lehmann‐Willenbrock 2015; Brown et al. 2016). These behaviors range from simple bad behavior while engaged in the meeting (e.g. complaining or blaming) to the distracting behaviors (e.g. texting, emailing, shopping, etc.), and all of them are known to harm overall meeting satisfaction, effectiveness, and performance. Furthermore, they can even sow distrust among colleagues because being disengaged in the meeting (say, completing your online grocery order) means a colleague expecting your support could be left out on a limb with an idea they proposed.
Body Language Has a Voice
We do not communicate through words and vocal production alone. We communicate with our whole bodies – our facial expressions, our posture, and the way we position ourselves relative to our conversation partners. We won't enter into the controversial fray of how much our body language is responsible for communicating the message, but suffice it to say that various studies have suggested nonverbal communication could account for anywhere from 55% to over 90% of how we communicate a message. Without a doubt, body language provides important clues into the meaning of the message we are conveying, and a lack of those visual clues creates a rather large void in our understanding of intent and impact.
Imagine you are conducting a virtual meeting with video off. You state what you consider to be a key point and appropriately wait for a response from your audience. What you hear is silence. What does that mean? Does that silence indicate that they are in total agreement with what you just said, or does it mean that they are confused, in total disagreement, or simply not listening to you at all? Without video, you have no way of knowing unless you specifically poll the room by asking each person to weigh in verbally. You may want to do this anyway, but wouldn't it be easier to begin that process by actually reading those nonverbal cues revealed in the video boxes on screen? If someone is nodding along, you know where that person stands. If someone is looking perplexed with a furrowed brow, then it might be wise to lean into that visual cue and ask him or her to speak up.
By the same token, if you are seen on screen delivering a message, your body language will enhance your ability to communicate authentically and your audience can more easily read your intent. We all know how tone is so difficult to read in an email or text. A spoken message at least allows you to read tonality, but the richest modality of delivery where your audience can hear and see you communicate leaves less room for misunderstanding.
The Value of Video for Internal Meetings
The culture shock was real for colocated teammates who were suddenly tossed to the winds and landed in their homes at the beginning of the pandemic. For those newly dispersed teams, video became a critical component for team cohesion, allowing coworkers to still interact with their officemates in a meaningful way. And yes, there is meaning in a virtual happy hour. But the benefits of video communication, especially for remote teams, had already been well‐documented and recognized by organizations that had been operating in that modality for years.
Better Team Performance
A fall 2019 Forbes Insights survey of more than 300 executives revealed just how valuable video is for teams that span the globe. High‐quality video collaboration tools allow the “best and brightest” to work seamlessly on a project no matter where they are in the world. Consider the words of Brett Durnell, a manager of Unified Communications at F5 Networks, a true believer in leveraging video for global teamwork: “We have international meetings where there can be ten different faces on the screen all working together as if they were in the same room. It changes the nature of the meeting, making it more engaging, fun, and collaborative.”
The survey results also revealed that at least 70% of respondents found that video meetings help drive the engagement of remote workers, improve team effectiveness, and enable individuals to be more productive. Keep in mind, this survey was conducted in the fall of 2019 prior to the bulk of business taking place virtually. As Joe found through his research, the benefits of video have been even more pronounced since the pandemic took hold, with even an overcorrection in productivity. Many employees who had never not had a commute found it hard to clock out when work was only a room or even an arm's‐length away, represented by a laptop sitting on a kitchen table (Green 2020). The fear of burnout was based in solid science, and corporations even today are wrestling with strategies to keep their employees from succumbing to it (Torman 2020).
The Video Portal: A Window into Our Coworkers' Homes
One of the more intriguing aspects of video meetings for suddenly remote teams was the opportunity to see our coworkers in a whole new light due to our ability to see them in a whole new environment. Admit it. You spent way too much time obsessing over someone's cool kitchen or what appeared to be a world‐class collection of bobbleheads lined up on a bookshelf in the background.
At the workplace, we tend to define our teammates mainly by their roles in the organization, and we view them through that prism. After all, our interactions with them are mainly professional, with perhaps a handful of relationships that go below the surface.
That curated veneer was stripped away to some degree by the video portal created by the reliance upon virtual communication. Not only did it afford the opportunity to check out everyone's space outside of the office, but it also allowed us to see our coworkers as whole people rather than just their roles. Who knew that Brenda has a green thumb with a penchant for orchids or that Chris collects beer cans from all over the world and displays them in alphabetical order on built‐in shelves crafted for that purpose?
We also met their children, their pets, their significant others, and their roommates in a way that felt simultaneously refreshing and invasive. What made it okay was the fact that everyone was in the same situation. One of the early suggestions to newly remote workers was to give context to your work‐from‐home space – let everyone know the unique challenges you face to create understanding. Knowing what each person was dealing with in this new virtual environment led to less eye‐rolling and more empathy. If someone suddenly muted their audio during a video meeting, perhaps it was because their elderly dog who refused to sit more than two feet from his master started to snore at a decibel that was untenable. Technical challenges might be attributed to bandwidth creaking under the weight of two adults simultaneously conducting virtual meetings, while their two little ones tried to navigate online school.
Psychological science backs the interesting benefits and occasional drawbacks of this new level of familiarity. The research is pretty clear that familiarity with others breeds liking, empathy, compassion, attraction, but also
