PART TWO
The first part of this book was intended to explain the environment created by the events leading up to the migration to hybrid meetings. We've looked at what has shaped this transition, identified lessons learned from our fully virtual experience, and given suggestions on how to recalibrate the use of video for those who are joining meetings remotely. Now it's time to arm you with information and specific strategies based in science to help you effectively run these hybrid meetings, which are unlike any you may have run before.
Our first bit of data intel sheds light on the people who will be attending your meetings and their likely frame of mind. Yes, we may all have been ordered to stay at home, but that experience, while communal, was not universal in its impact or its implications. If you go by the results of the survey shared in the Microsoft 2021 Work Trend Index, the forced work-from-home experiment wasn't so bad … that is, if you were a business leader (Microsoft 2021). More than 60% of managers reported that they were “thriving” during the pandemic versus only 38% without decision-making power who reported they were doing well. Given this gap, leaders would be wise to summon all of their empathetic powers to help their employees, who statistically may have been impacted more negatively than they have, to adapt to hybrid work and hybrid meetings.
However, there's another disconnect of note here between leaders and their direct reports regarding the adoption of flexible work schedules. After the collective call for hybrid options, most organizations are incorporating models that allow both in-person and remote work. It's a move that is being celebrated by the rank and file but likely causing angst among many front-line managers and executives who worry about its effect on company culture. After all, managing by walking around will definitely be passé when only a few people are in the office at the same time, unless the walking around also involves driving, flying, or taking the train to track down employees who are working from anywhere.
For many a manager, that's a major source of stress. “They're worried about building and shaping culture because there's never going to be as many in-person meetings,” observed Dan Hawkins, founder and CEO of Summit Leadership Partners, a top leadership and organizational effectiveness firm. “There's never going to be all of that face-to-face relationship building.” Relationships will have to be built in other ways, with different processes.
For leaders of a hybrid workforce, that culture-building requires new techniques and strategies: a new approach that will be reflected and manifested in the meeting culture that leaders shape. And it's not just a matter of dusting off the corporate mission and values and tweaking them for the post-pandemic world. It means doing things differently and embracing new ideas for regulating and maintaining company culture, vision, and mission within each group or team.
“Leadership behaviors drive culture, not values put on people's business cards,” says Dan, whose team has engaged in more discussions around this topic now than ever before. “Leaders need to articulate, ‘What behaviors do we need to exhibit every day? What behaviors should we stop? And what other habits do we need to start in the company to support this cultural shift?’”
During much of 2020, leaders didn't have time to be strategic; it was survival mode. According to Dan, “The first year of the pandemic, no one talked about meeting culture. They just said we need to have Zoom calls or video calls all the time. And it's back-to-back-to-back from 7 in the morning until 7 at night. Now, because people are seeing the management fatigue and drain, they're being more intentional about it.”
That intentionality led to policy changes like allowing no more than two back-to-back Zoom meetings, or carving out time in a call for purely social conversation where people could talk about and hear what was going on in people's lives outside of work. Management started to recognize that people simply needed and wanted to be seen, heard, understood, and supported.
With the transition to hybrid, meeting policies and procedures will also likely need to be adjusted based on how they play out “in the wild.” However, starting with a solid plan can mean the difference between a total overhaul of meeting practices and the need for some simple tweaks. Instead of survival mode, organizations and leaders have a moment to prepare, plan, strategize, and execute hybrid meetings effectively. The next few chapters are intended to provide you with a science-based path forward to allow for planning and implementation in an effective, responsive, and adaptive manner.
In this part, we will delve into the challenges of leading in a complex communication environment (Chapter 5) when a meeting involves a web of networks. A hybrid meeting might include people showing up on the screen from their home offices, folks sitting around the conference room table, and even a few popping up in their individual video boxes from quiet spots in the brick-and-mortar office that they found more appealing or convenient than the physical meeting room. With all of this complexity in mind, we will also give you specific strategies to help you better manage these meetings (Chapter 6) and raise your awareness about some of the potential problems when leading hybrid meetings, along with techniques you can try to avoid them (Chapter 7).
This is designed to be a practical guide, so be sure to grab a pen or pencil. We encourage you to fill out the checklists, from either the book itself or online at www.wiley.com\go\reed-allen\hybrid, provided throughout all three chapters that will empower you to effectively manage your hybrid meetings.
Reference
1. Microsoft. 2021. 2021 Work Trend Index: Annual Report – The next great disruption is hybrid work – Are we ready? Microsoft. Retrieved July 13, 2021 from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/hybrid-work