Dialing in and Nodding off: Virtual meetings get a B-
These days, everyone’s looking to cut costs and work smarter. Unfortunately, this has led to a near epidemic of mediocre meetings.
That’s the conclusion of a new study on the advantages, costs, and pitfalls of telemeetings conducted via phone, video or web. Based on a survey of more than 1,200 staff members working at public-interest organizations across North America, the study was developed by The Goodman Center, a partnership between Andy Goodman and Lipman Hearne that offers online marketing and communication classes.
The result of this study is a free webinar and report, entitled Dialing In, Logging On, Nodding Off: The True Costs of Teleconferences, Videoconferences and Webinars.
You can download the report and sign up for the free July 17 webinar here.
In the meantime, we asked Andy Goodman, Director of The Goodman Center, to walk us through the highlights:
Us: How mediocre are these meetings, generally?
Andy: Survey participants gave teleconferences and videoconferences a cumulative average of about B-. Webinars got about a B overall.
Us: What’s the most common cause of bad virtual meetings?
Andy: In the survey, participants chose from six possible causes. The single most common cause was lack of participation—people on the call just don’t participate. But the cause that had the greatest negative impact on the quality of telemeetings was poor leadership and facilitation.
Just to make sure we didn’t miss any causes, we also asked participants to volunteer their own diagnoses of poor calls. Participants cited poor time management, noise and technical problems most often. They also offered some pointed observations—one talked about “typing questions and wondering if they are going to Never Never Land.”
Us: What do think is behind all these problems?
Andy: Running a good meeting can be challenging under the best of circumstances. Now take away eye contact and introduce cameras, mute buttons, and a variety of technical hurdles. A whole new set of challenges can emerge. And yet, an overwhelming majority of respondents said that they had never received any training on how to effectively run a teleconference, video conference or web-based meeting.
Us: Do you think telemeetings are a lost cause then?
Andy: Not at all. Telemeetings are a great tool. But like any tool, they’ve got to be used skillfully. We’ve been teaching—and practicing—meeting skills at The Goodman Center for a while now, and we’re planning to offer a new class in the Fall on telemeetings. Also, our report cites some online tips and tools from a range of sources across the Internet.
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