Good morning,

Some people love remote work; some hate it. But perhaps we can agree on this: we’re all fatigued by talking about Zoom fatigue. Yet for many of us, remote work in some form, whether full-time or hybrid, is here to stay. So it behooves us to figure out how to get past that fatigue in order to get the most out of our virtual meetings.

The good news: there are things that can be done well, and perhaps even better, in virtual meetings than in person, explains professor Leigh Thompson. She offered up lots of tips and perks in her recent The Insightful Leader Live webinar (which we previewed in a Q&A with her last fall). We’ll discuss some of those ideas today.

Get the Most Out of Your Virtual Meetings

Thompson, a professor of management and organizations, understands that most people aren’t too jazzed about virtual meetings.

“Most of us think that virtual communication, as compared to face-to-face communication, probably has a big minus sign in front of it,” she says.

In part, that’s because we’re not always the best versions of ourselves online. Anyone who has ever read a comment thread anywhere on the internet knows that online interactions can be rife for conflict. This extends to our online meetings, where we might be more snarky than we would in person because we aren’t able to make eye contact with colleagues or read the room via body language.

But Thompson cautions that leaders shouldn’t try to rid their meetings of all conflict. Yes, definitely keep the snark in check, but there’s a second kind of conflict that is actually productive for teams: conflict over tasks. This sort of conflict lets team members debate the merits of an idea or plan and improve upon it.

“​​Task-focused conflict is where you don’t attack the people; you’re hard on the problem,” Thompson explains. So instead of saying you think your colleague is being dense, you say something like: “I don’t agree with the point that is being made on the slide show shared by Eduardo. I’d like to talk about it some more.”

Thompson offers a couple strategies for how to facilitate this productive conflict in your virtual meetings:

Acknowledge the conflict in the room: Effective leaders should be matter-of-fact about potential conflict. So, Thompson suggests starting a potentially fraught meeting with something along the lines of: “‘For the next hour, we’re going to discuss a matter that is of pivotal importance. We have mixed feelings about this. … There’s going to be strength of emotion. There’s going to be strength of spirit. And we’re going to have to check in several times to see how we’re doing.’ In other words, ‘Yeah, we’re talking about big, important stuff. This is not going to be easy.’”

Practice conflict: If you sense that your team is going to have trouble with task-based conflict in a high-stakes meeting, then ease into it by practicing with some lower-stakes decisions. Still not working? Thompson suggests bringing in a debate coach with the ultimate goal of learning how to encourage everyone to engage in the productive, task-focused conflict while avoiding the nasty interpersonal stuff.

When it comes to creative brainstorming, virtual meetings have an actual advantage over in-person ones.

In part this is because virtual meetings can feel more egalitarian. In-person brainstorms can end up dominated by the loudest voice in the room or by the most senior person at the head of the table. But there’s no head of the table on Zoom. And more introverted teammates often feel more comfortable speaking up online than in person.

“Substance matters a heck of a lot more than style, virtually,” Thompson says.

She offers some tips for how to get the most out of these brainstorms:

Start with some brain writing: Instead of yelling out ideas for a facilitator to write down, give everyone a fixed amount of time to write down their own ideas, preferably anonymously, in a shared document or virtual white board. Once that’s done, then the group can collectively iterate on these initial ideas. Research shows that groups will collectively generate more—and better—ideas when they begin brainstorming individually instead of as a group.

Do some speed-storming: Imagine a cross between speed dating and brainstorming, and you’ve got speed-storming. The idea is that people pair up for short bursts of brainstorming and then move on to a new partner. This is tailor-made for virtual meetings where people can easily be popped in and out of breakout rooms.

You can learn more from Thompson by watching her webinar or listening to this episode of The Insightful Leader podcast.