Clarksville, TN – Whether you have offices in multiple cities with employees that have regular conference calls or you just prefer working from your “virtual presence device,” you should consider how to get the most out of your virtual conversations.
Here are five tips to improve the quality of your next video conference, conference call, or online forum discussion.
Watch Your Tone
When you have to type your message, make an extra effort to be polite. Remember, if you are typing a statement or response, your audience cannot year your tone of voice, and text alone is a poor conveyor of tone. Be sensitive to the way the wording of your message may convey your tone, and try to minimize the unintended consequences of poor wording.
Voice + Text
Use Skype, a Google Hangout or a conference call service with a chat function for more complex back-and-forth discussions, especially if they are likely to involve disagreements or contentious topics. Skype and Google Hangout also allow for text chatting that can run parallel to the audible discussion, allowing people to ask for permission to jump into the ongoing conversation without interrupting one another.
Eliminate Distractions
Treat people in your virtual meetings with the same attention and respect you would give them if they were physically present. Don’t walk away from the phone or computer while someone is speaking. If you cannot be seen or heard – during a text-only chat, for example – you may be tempted to multitask, but resist the urge. Nobody likes to be kept waiting for a chat response while you’re multitasking.
Consider Sporadic Face-to-Face Meetings
If a meeting is absolutely necessary (I challenge you to ask yourself whether the task at hand cannot be completed without a meeting), consider having the meeting in person. Meeting people in person gives you access to their voice and appearance, and those things are necessary to fully understand and appreciate a person’s sense of humor and personal idiosyncrasies – the little things that make them who they are. When you have an opportunity to connect, live and in person, to people with whom you regularly virtually interact, you will likely find that the quality of your virtual interactions will improve.
Final Thoughts
Whether your meeting is virtual or face-to-face, Executive Legal Professionals can connect with your meeting attendees to enhance the quality of your meetings. Have a crucial meeting about a vendor contract, or maybe a tough “it’s not really working out” conversation with a volatile employee? Wouldn’t you like to have your business’s attorney attend that meeting? ELP offers both virtual and physical meeting attendance features with all of our packages of ongoing legal services which we offer for flat monthly rates. If you really want to optimize your most important meetings, consider adding ELP’s Virtual or Physical Meeting Attendance feature to your monthly plan.
NOTICE: The opinions and ideas expressed in this article are solely the opinions of the author, and may not necessarily reflect the views of the website on which they have been published. Nothing in this article should be construed to be “legal advice.” No attorney-client relationship results from the consumption of this media material. Please contact an attorney if you need legal counsel.
