How to adapt to the online boardroom meetings quickly?
Find out the most effective tips that help to perform the best experience during board members discussion.
Personal meetings with the boardroom members have recommended themselves very well. And naturally they are considered among employees to be more productive than virtual ones. Nevertheless online meetings are not useless. Let’s say if you work with a distributed team, you definitely have to constantly interact via phone calls and video conferences in order not to lose connection and synchronize.
To make sure the adaptation to the virtual communication with board members goes effortless, there are certain rules for leading online meetings.
Before the meeting
1. Select communication platform.
Online meetings are supported by software that connects to the Internet.
Naturally, the proper software is required for the best online communication experience.
Each service has advantages and cons; we suggest that you test them all and select the one that suits you and your board members in the best way.
2. Test the equipment and connection performance
Even the top quality online meeting solution might fail due to poor communication quality at some point. To keep these risks limited, it is required to test the equipment beforehand.
This also applies to any headsets used during the meeting.
3. Choose the proper location
During any meeting, the setting is critical.
Online meetings are no exception and need additional planning.
It is difficult to find a calm area where no one will interrupt or distract you.
But it must be done.
4. Make an agenda and share it with everyone beforehand.
Don’t spend your online meeting time by preparing for a chat.
It is preferable to plan the agenda ahead of time and communicate it with all attendees.
As a result, everyone will be able to plan, analyze, and generate thoughts and ideas.
5. Invite the right people.
It is quite difficult to organize remote meetings with a high number of participants since many of them will not be able or will not have time to say anything, feeling frustrated afterwards.
It is preferable for each participant to be charged with a certain agenda item, or at least to be aware of why he or she should attend the conversation.
6. Regulate participants
When a large number of board members take part in a discussion, some of the issues might occur:
- more interruptions,
- more additional noise
- prolonged calls
- break of connection and so on.
As a result, it is advised that the rules be reviewed and shared with all board members prior to the meeting.
For example, it is useful to restrict the amount of time each person has to talk so that the conversation does not drag on endlessly.
During the meeting
1. Introduce everyone so that the participants may distinguish one another.
No matter how many people attend an online meeting, everyone must be introduced.
To begin with, it will be difficult to locate a platform that allows you to display all members on the screen at the same time. Second, it is necessary that everyone knows who will engage in the dialogue and what they will be accountable for right away.
2. Have a small talk
Before beginning the agenda, a few minutes of small conversation helps to relax, adjust, and feel connected with the participants.
As a result, the upcoming conversation is more comfortable.
3. Choose a leader
A leader must be present at an online meeting to guide the discourse according to a pre-planned agenda.
If you ignore this simple guideline, there is a high possibility the conversation will spin out of control.
4. Provide everyone with an opportunity to speak.
Don’t forget to invite everyone to talk on a certain issue so that the dialogue is more informed, engaging, and valuable.
The meeting’s moderator should provide a few minutes to each board member.
After the meeting
Send a summary of the discussion to everyone. The same as regular meetings, online meetings need to be followed with a summary – fix the main points of the meeting, abstracts and ideas – and then share it with all participants.