Suddenly Hybrid: Managing the Modern Meeting by Karin M. Reed & Joseph A. Allen

Author:Karin M. Reed & Joseph A. Allen [Reed, Karin M. & Allen, Joseph A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781119831099
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2022-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Being Seen and Heard in Hybrid Meetings

Nothing is more important to the success of employees and people in organizations than being seen and heard – to have their ideas, opinions, and thoughts listened to, validated, and potentially even followed. And where might someone have the opportunity to be seen and heard? In their meetings.

In our virtual world, being seen and heard became more challenging not only because of the physical distancing from colleagues and customers, but because of the seductive allure of being able to multitask while hiding behind the anonymity of the black box labeled with just our name. We could be officially in attendance, but not really present.

In our ever‐changing and complex hybrid world, being just a black box with a name puts remote attendees in real danger. By not turning video on, a remote attendee's “presence” is significantly diminished or perhaps even forgotten.

This happened all too often during what we used to consider hybrid meetings in pre‐pandemic days when video was not as readily available or accessible. Consider this story from Eric Taylor, a collaboration technology evangelist whose career has taken him from SAS Institute, to Lenovo, to Logitech: “I remember in the early days of this when we were using the Polycom, the star phone, on the table. You know, we would go 15 or 20 minutes into a meeting before we would remember, ‘Oh, somebody was going to dial in.’ That person would have been sitting there in limbo for 10 or 15 minutes. They missed all the good stuff.” And we (Joe and Karin) would argue further that those who actually were in the meeting the entire time likely missed all of the great input that could have been provided by that remote person as well.

With today's video collaboration platforms, getting into the meeting might be easier (or at least the meeting organizer will be visually notified if someone is in the waiting room), but that is only half of the battle. Being seen and heard will not only require virtual attendees to keep the camera on, but will also call for additional effort from all other attendees and leaders of meetings in order to be aware of who is in the room, and to assist in amplifying voices that might otherwise be lost. This chapter is devoted to explaining how to create a more inclusive meeting culture that will set the stage for everyone to feel comfortable and confident adding their voice to the conversation.

In this chapter, we will explore:

The importance of and need to maintain a “speak‐up” culture in meetings

How to adopt a psychologically safe meeting environment

What attendees need to do to be seen and heard in their hybrid meetings

The need to get over the fear of speaking up

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