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. 

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. 

What’s the backstory and how will you uncover it

Many a meeting or workshop happens because we want to gather ideas from people, or ‘bring them along’ as a group or team. 

And each meeting presents ideal opportunities to connect, engage and share stories. 

But some meetings don’t allow even a few minutes here and there to listen and learn from people’s experiences. 

It’s such a shame we might push on with progress and not value this experience. 

If you’re feeling a disconnect or distance in your team or group, be sure to build in and allow time for sharing stories. 

It’s how we make sense of what’s going on. 

Invest some time:
- at the start of meetings
- between agenda items
- returning from breaks
... to hear from people. 

Give more time to understand a backstory or personal perspective. 

It can help inform what happens next. 

How creative could you be

Too many boring and dull online meetings, right?

How do we make things more interesting? And are we waiting for someone else to do the ‘be more creative’ thing?

There’s a personal scale of creativity - things that I think are creative and engaging, you may not. And vice versa. 

With that in mind, we can design and lead a number of creative exercises or activities that work in online meetings. 

Things like:
- Starter or kick off activities 
- Short icebreakers
- Introduction questions
- Quick energizers 
- Focus exercises to bring us back on topic 
- Get to know you activities 
- Idea generation exercises 
- Wrap up and summary tasks.  

None of them have to be long and drawn out. Some people wrongly think we don’t have time to bring more creativity to online meetings.

Even short bursts of a different activity can lift a mood, boost interest and attention or change the level of engagement. 

Times are tough anyway. We don’t need to make the mood worse with dull and drawn out online meetings!

It’s worth a little more effort to make the hours we spend online more interesting and more effective. 

We can all make a creative contribution here, whether leading the activity ... or participating in it.