Why aren’t they responding

Online meetings can give us the vibe that people aren’t listening, are disengaged or don’t have much interest in what the meeting’s about. 

It’s a natural response, though. We can’t pick up on those micro cues of body language that we might pick up when we’re all in each other’s company!

But don’t let this deter you from designing and delivering highly engaging experiences online. 

If you’ve asked the team a question and you aren’t getting a response ...
wait longer. 

Maybe they’re still thinking. 
Give them time to respond. 
Give them time to prepare. 

Your rush for a response might not be a match for their need for thinking time. 

Some people think before talking. Some people talk before thinking. 

To support and include all sorts, ask and wait. 
Or ask and come back to it later. 
Or ask well before the meeting and hear from people in the meeting. 

And of course, it could be the question. 

Prepare beforehand and work out what questions you’ll ask. 

We can always ask a better question. 

More conversations - less presentations

As more of our meetings are online, there’s also an increase in the number of times we’re disappearing down a deep hole of ‘share screen’ and PowerPoint. 

Our meetings shouldn’t be all about the presentation, the monologue - just one or two voices. 

We can have better collaboration and co-creation online and remotely by having more conversation... the dialogue, many and all voices. 

This means we have discussion, debate and exploration of a topic and people’s perspectives of that topic. 

As we witness and experience disconnection and disengagement of people online, we’d do well to try for more conversation than presentation. 

But the pressure !!!
- what questions should we ask
- how do you get the conversation started
- how do you open things up
- and then what
- how do we summarize, synthesise or bring that information together
- what will keep it going
- and how do we wrap it up?


Each of these is a nuanced skill of facilitation - always balancing and rebalancing, conversation and making progress towards outcomes - ebbing and flowing. 

Instead of defaulting to sharing your screen, giving a presentation, try something new and default to conversation. 

“I love your stuff Lynne,” they said.

What is our stuff? 

It’s our perspective. It’s what we think and how we package that up to share it with others. 

It’s how we express ideas and how we explain things, our views and values and experiences. 

It’s also our MO - modus operandi or our way, our method of doing things. 

So ... what’s yours? 
Have you thought about it? 
Are you already working on it? 
And do you share it?

The need for us to declare who we are and what we believe is on the rise: there is the growth of personal branding, sole business operators, your name dot com, individuals as brands and the opportunities available to share our stuff via social media profiles. 

Even if you don’t run your own show, having a profile and sharing your stuff helps build a body of your ideas, thinking and work that can help you carve out your career.

Do you know what your stuff is? And have you worked on it recently?

Are you there with curiosity

Or did critique and complaint show up instead? 

There can be an easier, default response to be right ... by pointing out the wrong. 

But these times of extreme change and uncertainty require a greater openness of mind, a willingness to wonder and a greater sense of possibility. 

Our curiosity bias is there. We think, ponder and are curious about many, many things. 

How can we be curious about the things that might benefit from our curiosity? 


1. Do we bring curiosity to potentially boring meetings? 

Do we think:
“OMG this is so dull and boring; they are a hopeless leader.”

Or do we think:
“Hmmm, how could I help bring greater engagement or contribute to higher interest - for myself and others? What else is possible? What could I do here?”


2. Do we bring curiosity to a dense information pack?

Do we think:
“Ugh what waffle. Pages of it! They’ve missed the point. They’ve got no idea.”

Or do we think:
“Hmmm I wonder what the intention is? What’s the main point here? How can I best make sense of this?”


It may be easier to critique but the better, and more powerful work is in curiosity. 

Be there with curiosity. 

Move beyond the clichés

- Let’s take it offline 
- I hear what you’re saying
- Let’s car park it 
- I’ll take it on board

These meeting clichés can be said to dismiss, defer or redirect attention. 

We might be economical, to “keep things moving”, so we use clichés for convenience. 

But they’re overused, unoriginal and predictable. 

Clichés might be convenient for you but they’re not so good for genuine, human conversations and interactions. 

People zone out. It doesn’t connect. 


Why not say what a human would say to another human, in a normal conversation style. 

Speak originally and genuinely, leaving ‘cliché city’ behind! 

The distances between us call for greater humanity and originality.

In a world where connection with each other has been impacted, it’s worth us trying to communicate in more human ways ... not less.