Connect instead of filling time

How to best use those minutes at the start of a virtual meeting

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is that when you are waiting for a virtual
meeting to start, use the time for connection rather than

(00:24):
talking just to fill blank space. So for in person meetings,
people naturally tend to chat as they arrive. Indeed, people
sometimes encourage new employees or junior employees to arrive early
at meetings in order to build connections with senior colleagues.

(00:44):
But somehow chatting before a virtual meeting can feel more awkward.
How many times have you been in a silent zoom
call where all the participants are sitting there, muted and
looking bored. Maybe the host will awkwardly greet people as
they arrive, but the conversation doesn't really take off. Worse,

(01:07):
when people are late, you can find yourself sitting silently
on the screen for a lot longer. The poor meeting
host may start polling people about the weather in all
their different locations, or the host drones on and on
about the purpose of the meeting and how glad they
are to see everyone until the late comers finally arrive,

(01:28):
and the actual meeting can begin. This can feel like
a waste of everyone's time that tends to sour the mood,
which can lead to less effective meetings. Instead, if you
are leading a virtual meeting, aim to use the arrival
time for building relationships and connection. There are a number

(01:49):
of ways you can do this. One option is to
pose a question and invite people to respond out loud
or in the chat. This gives people something to do
in little to connect with each other. Sometimes a topic
will catch fire in the chat or in the live discussion.
You can ask a question that is topical. For instance,

(02:10):
if you are leading a meeting about your company's orientation
for new hires, you could ask people to share something
that made them feel welcome in a new job or
a time when they were new and learn something important belatedly.
Other times, instead of a question related to the meeting topic,
it might make sense to acknowledge the context. If your
meeting is like the last day before winter break begins,

(02:32):
you could ask people about their favorite holiday movie. If
you are meeting at four pm on a Friday, well
don't do that. But if you are meeting shortly before
the weekend, you could ask people what they are looking
forward to meetings don't happen in a vacuum, so you
can connect by talking about life outside the meeting. Another

(02:53):
option is to do a more structured ice breaker while
you are waiting for everyone to arrive. This could be
something lighthearted, like your favorite Halloween candy, or something deeper.
You can pose the question, invite someone to respond, and
then each responder invites the next person to respond. That way,
you are not moderating the whole conversation. There's no awkwardness

(03:17):
in figuring out who will go next, and people have
a reason to pay attention to who has spoken. As
late comers arrive, you can paste the question into the
chat so they know what's going on. They will eventually
get invited to share. By the time everyone has arrived
and you are ready to start the meeting, you will
all know each other a tiny bit better. The point

(03:37):
of all of this is that time is valuable. If
you have asked people to gather, hopefully there is a
good reason people have devoted time to the meeting versus
something else. It is too bad that people are sometimes late,
but sometimes it happens. If it does, you don't want
to compound the problem by wasting everyone else's time time.

(04:00):
While you are waiting, you may as well use the
time for something useful. People are a good use of time,
so building relationships is probably the best thing you can
use these minutes for. Figure out a way to do that,
and you can start any meeting in a much more

(04:21):
positive way. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening,
and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks
for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,

(04:43):
or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iheartrate you app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.